Maryland's Influence Upon Land Cessions to the United States: With Minor Papers on George ...

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JOHNS UOFKMS CMVERSin STUDIES / )l

tx

HiSTOHICAL AND POLITICAL SOIENl^E

HERBERT 8. ADABU, Edlier

Ulitun' 'B t'Ml rcUUw BiMl PoUtiw prawut Bidorr^fVvtMiin

THIRD SERIES

. MARYLAND'S INFLUENCE

im CESSIONS 10 HIE milEI) SHIES

ffitti MiBor Faners on George VasbiDiitau's Umi\ in Wsstern Lands,
thB FolflHiac Company, and a Hallonal Dniiersily

By HERBERT B, ADAMB, Pli. D.

DALTIUORS

H<VviuiAt,]'iTBUiU>iO«'AauT. Joan Uonu!i<< L'
jAxoAaT, lias

MARYLAND'S INFLUENCE

UPON

LAND CESSIONS

TO THE

UNITED STATES

MARYLAND'S INFLUENCE

UPON

LAND CESSIONS

TO THE

UNITED STATES

** The vacant lands are a favorite object to Maryland."— Jam«8 Madison^ on
the plan for a general revenue^ 1783.

" There is nothing which binds one country or one State to another but
interest."— Georflfe Washington, on tlie Potomac ComxHiny, 1785.

** There is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in
the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and
happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an
honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperit
and felicity."— Washington, Inaugural Address, 1789.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES

IN

Historical and Political Science

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

History is past Politics and Politics present History.— ^eeman

THIRD SERIES
I

MARYLAND'S INFLUENCE

UPON

UP CESSIONS ID THE ONlIEfi SlilES

f itb ffiHor Papers oh ffsorce f asMnftoi's Merest in f esten Lails,
t&e Fotonac Company, and a National UniTersitr

By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D.

BALTIXOBE
N. XrwLAT. Ptblicatiov AoKsnr, Jofi9% Hopkivs rviTBscirr

JAVUART* 1S95

F

'\j

COPTBIOHTltD, 1885.

THS PBlXDBirWALD CO., PB1HTKB8,
BALTIHOBB.

INTRODUCTION.

This paper was first printed by tlie Maryland Historical Society
in 1877, (Fund PubUcation, No. 11), under the title " Maryland's
Influence in Founding a National Commonwealth." It is here pub-
lished in a somewhat revised form, for the sake of advancing the
lines of institutional study at the Johns Hopkins University, and
at the same time promoting the cause of American Economic
History.

The author would call attention to the territorial foundations of
the American Union and point out the fact that our Public Lands
stand in the same fundamental relation to our National Common-
wealth as did Common Lands to the Village Republics of New
England. The Great West was the Falkland of the United States;
it bound them together by economic interests when they would
otherwise have fallen apart after the Revolution. To trace out
the further constitutional influence of our Public Lands upon the
development of these States, which have increased and multiplied
within the national domain as did New England Parishes within
the original hmits of one Town,— this would be a contribution In-
deed to American Institutional History.

The planting of English Institutions - in each of those Western
States and Territories is a story not yet told. The agrarian and
general economic history has hardly been touched. For the com-
ing student there are questions of the deepest interest respecting
the disposition already made of Public Lands, both State and ^
National. George W. Knight, Ph. D., of the University of Michi-
gan, prepared for his Doctor's thesis a most valuable monograph
upon " Federal Land Grants to Education in the Northwest Terri-
tory," an abstract of which was presented at the first meeting of
the American Historical Association, by Professor Charles Kendall
Adams, and which is to be printed in full in the Proceedings of
the Association, First Series, HI. A similar research upon Land
Grants to Settlers in the Western States, has been undertaken by
Shosuki Sato, who is specially commissioned for that work by the
Japanese Government, and who is now prosecuting his agrarian
studies at the Johns Hopkins University. Land Grants to Rail-
roads should also be investigated as a chapter in the History of
American Politics as well as of American Economics (if the latter
term can be used in this connection). But the influence of Rail-
roads upon immigration and transportation, upon state and muni-

/

6 Introduction.

clpal life, opens into still more attractive fields. There seems to be
no limit to the economic and institntional interests connected with
the disposal of our Western Territory.

But there are vast questions lying back of the disposal and set-
tlement of our Public Lands; there are yet to be studied in minute
detail the records of national and colonial acquisition of territory';
the conflicting claims of states and nations; crown lands; royal
provinces; chartered colonies; Indian lands; Indian, English, Dutch,
and French land-tenure; agrarian survivals, etc. There are sub-
strata of economic history and historical geography in each one of
these United States. To some of the very oldest forms of fossil
land-tenure renewed attention will be called in a paper on ** The
Land System of New England Colonies," by Melville Eggleston,
Esq. The Land System of Virginia, and the Dutch Village Com-
munities upon Hudson River are also to be treated in these Studies.
Canadian Feudalism will be investigated; other topics of an a^a-
rian and institutional character will doubtless suggest themselves
to other students.

MSRYLaND'S INFLUENCE

UPON

USD ClSSliS TO THE DIITED STATES.

The claims of England to the lands immediately west of
the Alleghany mountains and to the region northwest of tlie
Ohio river, were successfully vindicated in the French and
Indian War. By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the English
became the acknowledged masters, not only of the disputed
lands back of their settlements, but of Canada and of the
entire Western country as far as the Mississippi river. This
was the first curtailment of Louisiana, that vast inland
region, over which France had extended her claims by virtue
of explorations from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Although
now restricted by the treaty of Paris to the comparatively
unknown territory beyond the Mississippi, Louisiana was
destined to undergo still further diminution, and, like Vir-
ginia, which was once a geographical term for half a conti-
nent, to become finally a state of definite limits and historic
character. Ceded by France to Spain, at the close of the
above-mentioned war, in compensation for losses sustained
by the latter in aiding France against England, and ceded
back again to France in 1800, through the influence of Na-
poleon, these lands beyond the Mississippi were purchased
by our Gk>vemment of the First Consul in 1803, and out of

8 MarylandPs I^ifluetice upon

the south-eastern portion of the so-called " Louisiana Pur-
chase," that State^ was created, in 1812, which perpetuates
the name of Louis XIV., as Virginia does the fame of a
virgin queen.

But it is not with Louisiana or the Louisiana Purchase
that we are especially concerned in this paper. We have to
do with a still earlier accession of national territor>', with
those lands which were separated from French dominion by
conquest and by the treaty of Paris, and, more especially,
with that triangular region east of the Mississippi, south of
the Great Lakes, and northwest of the Ohio, for here, as we
shall see, was established the first territorial commonwealth
of the old Confederation, and that too through the effective
influence and far-sighted policy of Maryland in opposing the
grasping land claims of Virginia and three of the Northern
States. The history of the cession of those public lands
which are best known to Americans as the Northwest Terri-
tory, and the constitutional importance of that cession as a
basis of permanent union for thirteen loosely confederated
States, and as a field for republican expansion under the
sovereign control of Congress, may be presented under three
general heads:

1. The land claims of Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecti-
cut, and New York.

2. The influence of Maryland in securing a general cession
of western territory for the public good.

3. The origin of our territorial government and national
sovereignty.

* One of the results of French dominion in this country is Louis-
iana, with its French inheritance of Roman Law. Having passed
of late years through many corrupt phases of government, it was
perhaps an historic necessity that she revived the Roman theory
of sovereignty, as did Louis XIV., by the aid of his court-lawyers,
and re-asserted la puissance souveraine d^une r4publiqv£ and Vitat
c'est moij in the form of an enlightened absolutism of its sovereigu
people.

Land Cessions to the United States. 9

I. The Land Claims.

Having indicated the historic place and territorial situa-
tion of the western lands in question, we shall now turn to
the specific claims of Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and New York, the only States, which after the separation
of the colonies from the mother-country, had any legal title
to lands northwest of the Ohio.

The charter granted by James I. to South Virginia, in
1609, was the most comprehensive of all the colonial charters,
for it embraced the entire northwest of North America and,
within certain limits, all the islands along the coast of the
South Sea or Pacific Ocean. It is not very surprising that
the ideas and language of the privy council should have been
somewhat hazy as to the exact whereabouts of the South Sea,
for Stith,^ one of the early historians of Virginia, tells us that
in 1608, when the London Company were soliciting their
patent, an expedition was organized under Captain Newport
to sail up the James river and find a passage to the South
Sea. Captain John Smith also was once commissioned to
seek a new route to China by ascending the Chickahominy.
This charter of 1609 is the only one which we shall cite in
this paper, for it was especially against the enormous claims
of Virginia that Maryland raised so just and effective a pro-
test. The following is the grant:

"All those lands, countries and territories situate, lying
and being in that part of America called Virginia, from the
point of land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the
sea-coast to the northward two hundred miles and from the
said Point or Cape Comfort, all along the sea-coast to the
southward two hundred miles; and all that space and circuit
of land lying from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid,
up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and

* Stith's History of the first discovery and settlement of Virginia.
Reprinted for Joseph Sabin, 1865, p. 77.

10

Maryland's Influence upon

northwest; and also all the islands lying within one hundred
miles along the coast of both seas of the precinct aforesaid."*
The extraordinary ambiguity of this grant of 1609, which
was always appealed to as a legal title by Virginia, was first
shown by Thomas Paine, the great publicist of the Ameri-
can and French Revolutions, in a pamphlet called " Public
Good,"' written in 1780, and containing, as the author says
upon his title-page, " an investigation of the claims of Vir-
ginia to the vacant western territory, and of the right of the
United States to the same ; with some outlines of a plan for
laying out a new State, to be applied as a fund, for carrying
on the war, or redeeming the national debt." Paine shows
how the words of the charter of 1609 could be interpreted in
different ways; for example, the words "all along the sea-
coast " might signify a straight line or the indented line of
the coast. The chief ambiguity, however, lay in the interpre-
tation of the words " up into the land throughout, from sea
to sea, west and northwest." From which point was the
northwest line to be drawn, from the point on the sea-coast
two hundred miles above, or from the point two hundred
miles below Cape Comfort? The charter does not state dis-
tinctly. The logical order of terms would imply that the
lower point below Cape Comfort should be taken as the
starting-point for the northwestern line. In that case, Vir-
ginia would have a triangular boundary and a definite area
something larger than Pennsylvania.

* Laws of the United States respecting the Public Lands, (Wash-
ington, 1828,) p. 81. See also Federal and State Constitutions,
Colonial Charters, etc., Part n., p. 1897. (Poore's ed., 1877).

• Works of Thomas Paine, I., p. 267.

Land Cessions to the United States.

11

The more favorable interpretation for Virginia and, per-
haps, in view of the expression " from sea to sea," more
natural interpretation, was to draw the northwestern line
from the point on the sea-coast two hundred miles above
Point Comfort and the western line from the southern limit
below Point Comfort. This gave Virginia the greater part,
at least, of the entire northwest, for the lines diverged con-
tinually, thus:

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a

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In 1624, the London Company was dissolved, and Vir-
ginia became a royal province, the Governor being appointed
by the King, but the people elected a House of Burgesses.
No alteration appears to have been made at that time in the
boundaries established by the charter of 1609, but the north-
em limits of Virginia were afterwards curtailed by grants to
Lord Baltimore and William Penn, and the southern limits
by a grant to the proprietors of Carolina.^ From a letter

* The charter of Maryland was granted in 1632, and may be found
in Bacon's Laws of Maryland at Large, or in Hazard, I., pp. 327-36.
The charter of Pennsylvania bears the date of 1681, and is con-
tained in Frond's History of Pennsylvania, I., pp. 171-87. The
original charter of Carolina (1663), for which Loclie's famous con-
stitution was written, is said to have been copied from the charter

12 MarylancPs Influence upon

of Edmund Burke to the General Assembly of New York,
for which province he was employed as agent, it is clear that,
in questions concerning the boundary of royal provinces, it
was the uniform doctrine and practice of the Lords Com-
missioners for Trade and Plantations, to regard " no rule but
the king's will."* A royal proclamation was issued in 1763,
prohibiting colonial governors from granting patents for
land beyond the sources of any of the rivers which flow into
the Atlantic ocean from the west or northwest.* Washing-
ton regarded this proclamation as a temporary expedient for
quieting the minds of the Indians, and he proceeded there-
fore, with the greatest tranquillity, to seek out and survey
good lands for future speculation.'

But efforts were being made to establish a new colony
back of Virginia. The so-called " Ohio Company " had
been founded as early as 1748, by Thomas Lee, Lawrence
Washington, Augustine Washington and others, for the col-
onization of the western country.* A grant had been ob-
tained, from the crown, of five hundred thousand acres of
land in the region of the Ohio, and the efforts of this com-
pany to open up a road into the western valleys precipitated
the French and Indian War. Probably the proclamation of
1763 was partly designed to pacify the Indians by reserving
for their use, under the sovereign protection of England, the
lands back of the Alleghanies and beyond the Ohio, but

of Maryland. See Lucas' Charters of the Old English Colonies,
London, 1850, p. 97. See also Poore's ed. of Constitutions, Char-
ters, etc.

* Burke's letter, which is most interesting for its exposition of
the Quebec Bill of 1774, annexing to Canada the country north-
west of the Ohio, was first published in the New York Bttstorical
Society Collections, 2d Series, n., pp. 219-25.

^This proclamation is to be foimd in the Land Laws of the
United States, pp. 84-88, or hi Franklin's Works, IV., p. 374, at
the conclusion of his famous paper on " Ohio Settlement."

•See letter to Crawford, September 21, 1767. Sparks' Life and
Writings of Washington, II., p. 346.

* Sparks' Life and Writings of Washington, n., p. 479.

Land Cessions to the United States. 13

schemes for a new government in that region were being dis-
cussed in England as well as in America/

In 1766, Benjamin Franklin* was laying plans for a second
great land company, which was finally organized and called
the Vandalia or Walpole Company. It was composed of
thirty-two Americans and two Londoners. Benjamin Frank-
lin was really the moving spirit in the enterprise, but he per-
suaded Thomas Walpole, a London banker of eminence, to
serve as the figure-head. The company petitioned, in 1769,
for a grant of two and a half million acres of western land,
lying between the thirty-eighth and forty-second parallels
of latitude and to the east of the river Scioto. Franklin was
in London and labored hard with Cabinet officers and the
Board of Trade for the success of Walpole's petition. It
was urged that the company offered more for this grant than
the whole region back of the mountains had cost the British
government, at the treaty of Fort Stanwix with the Indians,
in 1768. The claims of the Ohio Company were also
merged in this new scheme, but the report thereon was long
delayed through the influence of Lord Hillsborough. A
" new colony back of Virginia " was much talked of, how-
ever, about the year 1770. Lord Hillsborough himself had
some correspondence that year with the Governor of Vir-
ginia on this subject' From a letter of George Washing-
ton to Lord Botetourt, and from subsequent correspondence
between Washington and Lord Dunmore, Botetourt's suc-
cessor as Grovemor of Virginia, it is perfectly clear that a
new and independent colony was in prospect back of the
Alleghanies.*

Indeed, a rival scheme, under the name of the Mississippi
Company, seems to have been organized by gentlemen of

*A pamphlet was published in London, in 1763, entitled "The
Advantages of a settlement upon the Ohio in North America."

■ Works of Franklin, IV., p. 233.

' See Works of Thomas Paine, I., 290.

* Writings of Washington, H., pp. 356, 360.

14 MarylatuPs Influence upon

Virginia, among whom Francis Lightfoot Lee, Richard
Henry Lee, Arthur Lee, and George Washington were con-
spicuous, but their petition, in 1769, for two and a half
milHon acres of back land was never heard from after it had
been referred to the Board of Trade/ Walpole's petition,
however, after a delay of three years, was, through the influ-
ence of Lord Hillsborough, unfavorably reported. Franklin
immediately prepared an answer, which is said to be " one of
the ablest tracts he ever penned,"* and in which he so utterly
refuted the arguments of Lord Hillsborough that Walpole's
petition was finally granted by the Crown, August 14, 1772.
Lord Hillsborough was so mortified that he resigned his
position as Cabinet Minister and President of the Board df
Trade.

In the Washington-Crawford correspondence, from 1772
to 1774, there are several allusions to the prospect of a " new
government on the Ohio.''* Washington, in a letter dated
September 25, 1773, desires to secure ten thousand acres of
land as near as possible to " the western bounds of the new
colony,"* that is, just beyond the Scioto, and in a Baltimore
newspaper of that year, he advertises for sale twenty thou-
sand acres of land on the Great Kanawha and Ohio rivers,
observing that " if the scheme for establishing a new gov-
ernment on the Ohio, in the manner talked of, should ever
be effected, these must be among the most valuable lands in
it."* It was confidently expected, after the treaty between
the Crown of Great Britain and the Indians, in 1768, at Fort

* See Plain Facts, Philadelphia, 1781, p. 69.

* Sparks* Life and Writings of Washington, n., p. 485. Franklin's
paper, which is entitled '* Ohio Settlement," may be found in his
Works, IV., pp. 324-374.

*The Washington-Crawford Letters concerning Western Lands.
Edited by C. W. Butterfield, (Chicinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.,
1877,) pp. 25, 30, 35.

* Washington-Crawford Letters, p. 30. See also Washington's
letter to Dimmore, November 2, 1773. Washington's Writings, II.,
p. 378.

* Maryland Jonmal and the Baltimore Advertiser, August 20,
1773. A fac-simile of this number was reprinted in 1876, by tlie
Baltimore American.

J

Land Cession^ to the^nited States. 15

.. Stanwix, that the lines of the colonies would be re-extended
"beyond the AUeghaii^'mountains, or, in other words, that
y. the limits imposed by 'ithe royal proclamation of 1763 would
f fall, but there is no e^6nce that this expectation was ever
realized by any act of the King in council. It was rumored,
indeed, at various times after Walpole's Grant had been se-
cured, that " the new government on the Ohio " had fallen
through and that Virginia was authorized to re-assert her
ancient charter boundaries, but these rumors appear to have
been false. The legal title of the Walpole Company was
not, indeed, fully perfected when revolutionary troubles
broke out, but it is evident from a report in the Journals of
Congress on the claims of this Company, generally known
as the Vandalia, that the King and council had really agreed
to erect the region back of Virginia into a separate colony,
and that the agreement was completed all but affixing the
seals and passing certain forms of office. While it was held,
in the above report, that the allowance to a single company
of such immense land claims, was incompatible with the
interests and policy of the United States, it was recom-
mended that the American members of the Vandalia be re-
imbursed by Congress in distinct and separate land grants,
for their share in the purchase of the above tract.*

The consideration with which the claims of the Vandalia
are treated in this report, which dismisses so summarily the
pretensions of the Illinois and Wabash Companies, shows
conclusively that there was some essence of right and le-
gality in the original Walpole Grant. At all events, it was
recognized before the Revolution as taking the precedence
of Virginia's claim to jurisdiction over the lands west of the
Alleghanies. Lord Dunmore, in the summer of 1773,
promised Washington's land agent to grant certain patents
on the Ohio in case the new government did not take placed

* Journals of Congress, IV., p. 23.

* Washington-Crawford Letters, p. 35.

16 Maryland's Influence upon

and in the fall of that year he wrote to Washington in the
most positive terms: " I do not mean to grant any patents
on the western waters, as I do not think I am at present
empowered so to do."' Lord Dunmore had, however, at
some previous date, issued patents to Washington for above
twenty thousand acres of land on the Great Kanawha and
Ohio rivers, as we know from the latter's advertisement,
above mentioned, in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore
Advertiser of August 20, 1773. The Governor of Virginia
had no jurisdiction outside of his own province, but he had
the right to grant from the King's domain two hundred
thousand acres in bounty-lands, to officers and soldiers who
had served in the French and Indian War, and who should
personally apply to him for land-warrants: To every field-
officer, five thousand acres; to every captain, three thousand;
to every subaltern or staff -officer, two hundred ; and to every
private soldier, fifty acres. These grants could be made in
Canada or Florida, or in the so-called " Crown lands." The
latter term was usually applied, after the proclamation of
1763, to the lands back of the AUeghanies and beyond the
Ohio.

Private surveys in the above region had begun long be-
fore the time of Walpole's Grant, and the claims of officers
and soldiers had, to some extent, been bought up by specu-
lators. Washington and his land agent, William Crawford,
had been particularly active in seeking out good tracts of
land in the western country. As a field-officer, Washington
was entitled, under the proclamation, to five thousand acres
of bounty-land, but there is positive evidence to show that he
had surveys for over seventy thousand acres; that he se-
cured piktents, in the names of officers and soldiers, for over
sixty thousand, and that he himself was the owner of, at
least, thirty-two thousand acres, which he called " the cream
of the country — the first choice of it." There is a charming
frankness in Washington's statement to the Reverend John

* Writings of Washington, n., p. 379.

Land Cessions to the United States. 17

Witherspooh concerning these lands. " It is not reasonable
to suppose," he says, " that those who had the first choice,
[who] had five years allowed them to make it in and a large
district to survey in, were inattentive to the quality of the
soil or the advantages of the situation." ^ There was nothing
discreditable to Washington in his land speculations. We
can only admire that far-sighted wisdom which so early
discerned the importance of the western country, and that
practical sagacity which was as great in affairs of private
enterprise as it was afterwards in the affairs of state. It is
certain, moreover, that in his business undertakings. Wash-
ington contemplated " an extensive public benefit as well as
private advantage,"* for, already before the Revolution, he
had begun a correspondence relative to the importation of
Germans from the Palatinate to colonize his lands." Wash-
ington is the prototype of that public spirit and private en-
terprise which are so characteristic of Americans, and which,
after all, constitute the life-principle of the American Repub-
lic. While investigating the nature of those material in-
terests out of which the American Union was developed, it
is not improper to glance thus, in passing, at the business
characteristics of the Father of his Country. This question
of land claims is so interwoven with land grants and land
speculations, both private and public, that it is necessary, for
a proper understanding of the subject, to trace out, here and
there, lines of individual conduct and the threads of personal
motive.

It is uncertain when Lord Dunmore* first began to issue
patents for the bounty-lands. We know that he must have

* Washlngton-Orawford* Letters, p. 78. For Washington's Land
Speculations, see Appendix.

• See letter to Crawford about the Salt Springs, Washington-
Crawford Letters, p. 31.

» See Writings of Washington, II., pp. 382-7.

*That Lord Dunmore patented Washington's land is evident
from the latter*s own statements. See Washington-Crawford Let-
ters, p. 77. For the relation between Lord Dunmore and Wash-

18 MarylandPs Influence upon

patented upwards of twenty thousand acres for Washington,
as early as July, 1773, for we find Washington's advertise-
ment of the same, bearing the date of the 15th of July.
Washington speaks of these lands as " among the first which
have been surveyed." In the Maryland Gazette for March
10, 1774, may be foimd an official notice, dated January 27,
1774, directing gentlemen, officers, and soldiers, who claim
land under the proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763,
and who had obtained warrants from the Earl of Dunmore,
to appear in person or by agent, at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha, on the 14th of April, and have their lands sur-
veyed. The land-agents and surveyors, who went down the
Kanawha upon the above errand, were stopped, or, as some
say, attacked by Indians, and the hostilities which ensued
brought on the bloody conflict of 1774, known as Lord
Dunmore's War, which was waged by the Virginians against
the Shawanese and Mingoes. This war may be regarded as
the foundation of Virginia's military title to the lands back
of the AUeghanies. Legal title she had not. The rumor
which had been industriously circulated in January, 1774,*
to the effect that the " new government " had fallen through,
was without foundation. Lord Dunmore appears to have
issued most of his patents in 1774, and to have made a vio-
lent effort, in the spring of that year, to assert the jurisdic-
tion of Virginia over the entire region beyond the moun-
tains. The attempt was made by Connolly, the agent of
Lord Dunmore, to u^urp authority even over territory which
had formerly belonged to Pennsylvania. Connolly sought,
but without success, to enforce the militia laws of Virginia
in the county of Westmoreland, and to secure the country
around Pittsburg for the province of Lord Dunmore. But
the conquest of the back lands was soon effected by Virginia,
and possession made her title good. Conquest and posses-

ington, and for the former's interest in looking over the ground be-
fore granting further patents, see Appendix. -

* Washington-Crawford Letters, p. 40.

Land Cessions to the United States. 19

sion became accomplished facts, and against such there is
no law.

By act of Parliament, in 1774, the Crown lands north-
west of the Ohio were annexed to the royal province of
Quebec. It was the so-called Quebec Bill/ which was
referred to in the Declaration of Independence as one of
** their acts of pretended legislation." The King was de-
nounced " for abolishing the free system of English laws in
a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary
government, and enlarging its boundaries." All the Ameri-
can colonies felt themselves more or less aggrieved by the
Quebec Bill, for lands which had been rescued from the
French by the united efforts of Great Britain and America
were now severed from their natural connection with the
settlements of the seaboard, and formed into a vast inland
province, like the ancient Louisiana of France. French law,
moreover, was revived at Quebec and absolute rule seemed
everywhere imminent

But the Declaration of Independence changed the relations
of things. It was the general opinion in America, that " the
Crown lands " were inseparable from colonial interests, and
that, in case the war should be brought to a successful issue,
those States having a legal title to the western country could
assert jurisdiction over the territory which fell within their
respective limits. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Vir-
ginia had annexed the " County of Kentucky " to the Old
Dominion, and, in 1778, after the capture of the military
posts in the horthwest by Colonel George Rogers Clarke,' in
a secret expedition undertaken by Virginia at her own
expense, that enterprising State proceeded to annex the lands
beyond the Ohio, under the name of the County of Illinois.
The military claims of Virginia were certainly very strong,

^ This document is reprinted in the Report of the Regents of the
University on the Boundaries of the State of New York, pp. 90-92.

• For Clark's own account of the Expedition, see Perkins' Annals
of the West, (Cincinnati, 1846,) pp. 204-210. Clarke's commission
from Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, may be found in
Perkins, p. 184.

t

r

I

i

I

20 Maryland's Influence upon

but it was felt by the smaller States that an equitable consid-
eration for the services of other colonies in defending the
back country from the French, ought to induce Virginia to
dispose of a portion of her western territory for the common
good.

It is easy now to conceive how royal grants to Massachu-
setts and Connecticut of lands stretching from ocean to
ocean, must have conflicted with the charter claims and
military title of Virginia to the great northwest We have
seen that Virg^ia's charter could be extended over the en-
tire region beyond the Ohio. It is not necessary to quote
the original charters* of Massachusetts and Connecticut, for,
told in brief, the former's claim embraced the lands which
now lie in southern Michigan and Wisconsin, or, in other
words, the region comprehended by the extension westward
of her present southern boundary and of her ancient north-
em limit,* which was " the latitude of a league north of the
inflow of Lake Winnipiseogee in New Hampshire." The
western claims of Connecticut covered portions of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.

The chartered rights of New York were based upon the
grant of 1664 to James, Duke of York, by his brother
Charles II.' By an agreement originally made in 1683, the

^The claims of Massachusetts were based upon the charter
granted by William and Mary, in 1691, and those of Connecticut
upon the charter granted by CJharles n., in 1662. These docu-
ments may be found in the Laws of the United States respecting
the Public Lands, pp. 78, 80 (ed. 1828).

See also Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, etc.,
Part I.

* This statement is from Walker's Statistical Atias of the U. S.,
1875. (Areas and political Divisions, compiled by Mr. Stocking of
the Patent Office.) The text of the original charter, although some-
what obscure, seems to imply that the northern limit of Massachu-
setts was three miles north of the head of the Merrirodc river.
Probably Mr. Stocking has some other source of information, for
his work throughout is extremely well done, being the most relia-
ble and concise exposition we have seen of that complicated sub-
ject, the land cessions.

* See Report of the Regents of the University on the boundaries
of the State of New York, p. 11.

Lcmd Cessions to the United States. 21

boundary between Connecticut and New York was fixed at a
line twenty miles distant from the Hudson river. Massa-
chusetts agreed, in 1773, to a continuation of the same line
for her western limit.^

The extension of charter boundaries over the far west by
Massachusetts and Connecticut, led to no trespass on the
intervening charter claims of New York. Connecticut fell
into a serious controversy, however, with Pennsylvania, in
regard to the possession of certain lands in the northern part
of the latter State, but the dispute, when brought before a
court appointed by Congress, was finally decided in favor of
Pennsylvania.* But in the western country, Massachusetts
and Connecticut' were determined to assert their chartered
rights against Virginia and the treaty claims of New York,
for, by virtue of various treaties with the Six Nations and
allies, the latter State was asserting jurisdiction over the
entire region between Lake Erie and the Cumberland moun-
tains, or, in other words, Ohio and a portion of Kentucky.*
These claims were strengthened by the following facts:
First, that the chartered rights of New York were merged in
the Crown by the accession to the throne, in 1685, of the
Duke of York as James II.; again, that the Six Nations and
tributaries had put themselves under the protection of Eng-
land, and that they had always been treated by the Crown
as appendant to the government of New York; moreover,
in the third place, the citizens of that State had borne the
burden of protecting these Indians for over a hundred years.*
New York was the great rival of Virginia in the strength

• See above Eeport, pp. 58, 212.

• January 3, 1783. See Journals of Congress, IV., p. 129, for these
proceedings, which are important, as Ulustrating the position of
the old Congress in arbitration.

• See Plea in Vindication of the Connecticut Title to contested
lands west of New Yorli. By Benjamin Trumbull, New H^ven, 1774.

*See Journals of Congress, IV., p. 21. Franklin's Works, IV.,
824-379.

■ Journals of Congress, IV., p. 22.

\

22 Maryland's Influence upon

and magnitude of her western claims. In fact, the chief
interest of the great land controversy turns upon the rival ,
offers made to Congress by the two States at the instance of
Maryland.

We have now in our mind's eye the conflicting claims of
Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York to that
vast region beyond the Ohio. We shall now consider, for a
second topic, the process by which these various land claims
were placed upon a national basis, or, more specifically,

II. The Influence of Maryland.

The immense importance of the region northwest of the
Ohio as a source of national revenue, when the tide of immi-
gration should set in, was recognized as early as 1776. Silas
Deane, the agent whom the Continental Congress had sent
to France, addressed a communication* to the Committee of
Secret Correspondence, calling the attention of Congress to
that triangular region described, in general, by the Ohio, the
Mississippi, and the parallel of Fort Detroit " These three
lines," he says, " of near one thousand miles each, include an
immense territory, in a fine climate, well watered, and, by
accounts, exceedingly fertile. To this I ask your attention,
as a resource amply adequate, under proper regulations, for
defraying the whole expense of the war."

The first move that was ever made in Congress towards the
assertion of national sovereignty over this western country,
was made by Maryland. On the 15th of October, 1777,
exactly one month before the Articles of Confederation were
proposed to the legislatures for ratification, it was moved
" that the United States in Congress assembled, shall have
the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix
the western boundary of such States as claim to the Missis-
sippi or South Sea, and lay out the land beyond the boun-

* Diplomatic Correspondence, edited by Sparks, I., p. 79.

Land Cessions to the United States. 23

dary, so ascertained, into separate and independent States,
from time to time, as the numbers and circumstances of the
people may require."^ Onfy Maryland voted in the affirma-
tive. But in this motion was suggested that idea of political
expansion under the sovereign control of Congress, which
ultimately prevailed and constituted, upon grounds of ne-
cessity, a truly National Republic. Not only the suggestion
of a firm and lasting union upon the basis of a territorial
commonwealth, but the chief influence in founding such a
union, must be ascribed to Maryland. And yet, strange to
say, this priority of suggestion has never been noticed, and,
stranger still, the constitutional importance to this country
of Maryland's subsequent opposition to the land claims has
wholly escaped attention.

The original proposition that Congress should exercise
sovereign power over the western country was a pioneer
thought, or, as the Germans say, a bahnbrechende Idee. We 4*^^ )a
have discovered by a careful examination of the Journals \

of the Old Congress, that Maryland was not only the first,
but for a long time the only State, to advocate national
jurisdiction over the western lands. The opposition to the
establishment of a public domain, under the sovereign con-
trol of Congress was so great, at the outset, that the States
possessing land claims succeeded, a few days after Mary-
land's motion, in adding a clause to the Ninth Article of the
Confederation, to the effect that no State should be deprived
of territory for the benefit of the United States." In the
remonstrances to this grasping policy of the larger States, by
Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware, we shall find that
there was no thought of investing Congress with the rights
of sovereignty over the Crown lands. What these States
desired was either a share in the revenues arising from the
western country, or, that the funds accruing from the sale of

^ Journals of Congress, n., p. 290.

■ October 27, 1777. See Journals of Congress, 11., 304.

*\aJM^

24 Maryland's Influence upon

western lands should be applied towards defraying the
expenses of the war. But of the western lands as the basis
of republican expansion, under the national jurisdiction of
Congress, these States seemed to have no conception what-
ever. Rhode Island, in a proposed amendment to the Ar-
ticles of Confederation, expressly declared that all lands
within those States, the property of which before the war was
vested in the Crown of Great Britain, should be disposed of
for the benefit of the whole confederacy, "reserving, how-
ever, to the States within whose limits such Crown lands
may be the entire and complete jurisdiction thereof."* New
Jersey in her remonstrance to the Ninth Article, while de-
manding that the Crown lands should be sold by Congress
for defraying the expenses of the war, admits that "The
>*"^ jurisdiction ought, in every instance, to belong to the respec-

tive States within the charter or determined limits of which
such lands may be seated.'" Delaware also had a keen sense
of the common interest of all the States in the sale of the
unoccupied western lands, but of that interest as the basis of
a truly national commonwealth she seems to have had no
appreciation whatever.' The credit of suggesting and suc-
cessfully urging in Congress, that policy which has made
this country a great national commonwealth, composed of
"free, convenient, and independent governments," bound
together by ties of permanent territorial interests, — ^the credit
of originating this policy belongs to Maryland, and to her
alone. Absolutely nothing had been effected by Rhode
Island, New Jersey and Delaware, before they ratified the
Articles, towards breaking down the selfish claims of the
larger States and placing the Confederation upon a national
basis. Delaware, the last of all the States, except Maryland,
to ratify the Articles, acceded to the latter, February 22,
1779, under a mild protest, which Congress allowed to be

■\ /

* Journals of Congress, II., p. 601.
» Ibid., II., p. 605.
« lUd., III., p. 201.

Land Cessions to the United States. 25

placed on file, ^ provided," as was said, " it should never be
considered as admitting any claim."^ Maryland was left to
fight out the battle alone, and with what success we shall
shortly see.

The " Instructions " of Maryland to her delegates, which
were read in Congress, May 21, 1779, after the accession of
Delaware, as above stated, forbidding them to ratify the
Articles of Confederation before the land claims had been
placed upon a different basis, must be regarded as one of the
most important documents in our early constitutional his-
tory, for it marks the point of departure for those congres-
sional enactments of the 6th of September and loth of Oc- S>-^ U
tober, 1780, which were followed by such vital results for the ^

constitutional as well as the material development of this
country. From the effect of these instructions upon the acts
and policy of Congress, we shall be able to trace out, from
documentary evidence, the line of events which led to the
great land cessions of Virginia and New York, and to the
Ordinance of 1784 for the government of the ceded territory,
which Ordinance was termed "a charter of compact," the
articles of which should stand as "fundamental constitu*
tions " between the thirteen original States and each of the
new States therein described. The following brief citations
from the original document will suffice to convey its tenor
and spirit, and to indicate the attitude of Maryland towards
the Confederation:*

"Although the pressure of immediate calamities, the dread
of their continuance from the appearance of disunion, and
some other peculiar circumstances, may have induced some
States to accede to the present confederation, contrary to
their own interests and judgments, it requires no great share
of foresight to predict that when those causes cease to oper-
ate, the States which have thus acceded to the confederation

* Journals of Congress, HI., p. 209.

* Journals of Congress, HE., p. 281.

26 MarylandFs Influence upon

will eagerly embrace the first occasion of asserting their just
rights and securing their independence. Is it possible that
those States, who are ambitiously grasping at territories, to
which, in our judgment, they have not the least shadow of
exclusive right, will use with greater moderation the in-
crease of wealth and power derived from those territories,
when acquired, than what they have displayed in their en-
deavors to acquire them? We think not . . . Suppose, for
instance, Virginia indisputably possessed of the extensive
and fertile country to which she has set up a claim, what
would be the probable consequences to Maryland? . . .
Virginia, by selling on the most moderate terms, a small
proportion of the lands in question, would draw into her
treasury vast sums of money and . . . would be enabled
to lessen her taxes: lands comparatively cheap and taxes
comparatively low, with the lands and taxes of an adjacent
State, would quickly drain the State, thus disadvantageously
circumstanced, of its most useful inhabitants, its wealth; and
its consequence, in the scale of the confederated States, would
sink of course. A claim so injurious to more than one-half,
if not the whole of the United States, ought to be supported
by the clearest evidence of the right Yet what evidences of
that right have been produced? . . . We are convinced,
policy and justice require that a country unsettled at the
commencement of this war, claimed by the British crown,
and ceded to it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the
common enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen
States, should be considered as a common property, subject
to be parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient and
independent governments y in such manner and at such time
as the wisdom of that assembly shall hereafter direct . . .
" We have spoken with freedom, as becomes freemen, and
we sincerely wish that these our representations may make
such an impression on that assembly [Congress] as to in-
duce them to make such addition to the articles of confedera-
tion as may bring about a permanent union."

Land Cessions to the United States. 27

In connection with the above Instructions, which were
passed by the Maryland legislature as early as December 15,

1778, was sent another document, bearing the same date,
which was called a Declaration. The design was, as we
know from the Instructions themselves, to bring the Decla-
ration before Congress at once, to have it printed and gen-
erally distributed among the delegates of the other States.
The Instructions were to be read, in the presence of Con-
gress, at some later period, and formally entered upon the
journals of that body. We find that the Declaration was
really brought forward, by the Maryland delegates, on the
sixth of January, 1779, but the consideration of the same
was postponed, and the document itself does not appear in
the journals. In Hening's Statutes of Virginia, however,
among the papers relating to the Cession of North-Western
Territory, this Declaration is to be found, side by side with
the Maryland Instructions, and both immediately preceding
the so-called " Virginia Remonstrance," dated December 14,

1779, and an act of the New York legislature, of February
19, 1780, called "An act to facilitate the completion of the
articles of confederation and perpetual union, among the
United States of America."^ As the latter documents reveal
the first practical results of Maryland's policy in opposing
the land claims, it is necessary to investigate their origin.

In May, 1779, the same month, it will be remembered,
that the Maryland Instructions were read before Congress,
the Virginia legislature passed an act for establishing a Land
Office and for ascertaining the terms upon which land grants
should be issued." It was declared that vacant western ter-
ritory, belonging to Virginia, should be sold at the rate of
forty pounds for every hundred acres. In another act,
passed about the same time, the patents issued to officers
and soldiers, under the proclamation of 1763, by any royal

* Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, X., pp. 549-61.
•JWd., pp. 50-65.

CpiX/

28 MarylancPs Infliience upon

governor of Virginia, were declared valid, but all unpatented
surveys were to be held null and void; except in the case of
settlers actually occupying lands to which no person had a
legal title. Such settlers were to be allowed four hundred
acres, on the condition of entering their claims at the Land
Office. By such measures was Virginia proceeding to dis-
pose of the western lands, to which Maryland had set up a
claim in the interest of the United States. But Virginia
was trespassing on the legal rights of the great land com-
panies, particularly upon the claims of the Vandalia to Wal-
pole's Grant, which we have previously described. On the
fourteenth of September, 1779, a memorial was read to Con-
gress, in behalf of the interests of Thomas Walpole and his
associates. This memorial was referred to a committee on
the eighth of October, and the favorable report which was
subsequently made upon the claims of American members of
the Vandalia Company has already been mentioned.* But,
on the thirtieth of October, long before this committee had
reported, the following resolution was introduced by Mr,
William Paca, of Maryland, and seconded by his colleague ,
Mr, George Plater :

" Whereas, the appropriation of vacant lands by the sev-
eral States during the continuance of the war will, in the
opinion of Congress, be attended with great mischiefs; there-
fore,

" Resolved, That it be earnestly recommended to the State
of Virginia, to reconsider their late act of assembly for open-
ing their land office; and that it be recommended to the
said state, and all other states similarly circumstanced, to for-
bear settling or issuing warrants for unappropriated lands,
or granting the same during the continuance of the present
war.''*

This resolution was adopted, only Virginia and North
Carolina voting in the negative. The New York delegates
were divided.

* See p. 15. ^ Journals of Ck>ngress, ICL, p. 384.

Land Cessions to the United States. 29

These steps bring us to the famous Remonstrance, which
was addressed "by the General Assembly of Virginia to
the delegates of the United American States in Congress
assembled." The connecting link between the Maryland
Instructions and Virginia's Remonstrance is supplied by
the above Resolution of Mr. Paca. Virginia protests
against the idea of Congress exercising jurisdiction or any
right of adjudication concerning the petitions of the Van-
dalia or Indiana land companies, or upon ''any other mat-
tery^ subversive of the internal policy of Virginia or any of
the United States. But in this Remonstrance, Virginia de-
clares herself "ready to listen to any just and reasonable
propositions for removing the ostensible causes of delay to
the complete ratification of the confederation." ^ The word
ostensible is italicized in the original document and refers, of
course, to Maryland, for this State was the only one which
had not ratified the Articles. Manifestly, the influence of
Maryland was, at last, beginning to tell. It was the sturdy
opposition of this State to the grasping* claims of Virginia
and the larger States, which first awakened a readiness for
compromise in the matter of land claims. Hening says
Maryland " insisted that the States, claiming these western
territories, should bring them into the common stock, for
the benefit of the whole Union."* Howison, the most recent
historian of Virginia, declares, that " Maryland was inflexible
and refused to become a party [to the Confederation] until
the claims of the States should be on a satisfactory basis."*

The readiness of Virginia to do something to remove the
" ostensible cause " of delay on Maryland's part, indicates

* Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, X., pp. 357-59.

'Virginians who object to this phrase are referred to the Writ-
ings of Washington, IX., p. 33, where, in a letter to Jefferson, he
says: " I am not less in sentiment with you respecting the impolicy
of this State's grasping at more territory than they are competent
to the government of."

* Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, X., p. 548.

* Howison, History of Virginia, II., p. 286.

30 Maryland?s Influence upon

that her land claims were becoming less positive. But the
act of the legislature of New York " to facilitate the com-
pletion of the Articles of Confederation," shows most decid-
edly that Maryland's cause was prevailing. The historic
connection of this measure with the influence of Maryland
delegates in Congress has never been shown, but from ma-
terials now accessible in a letter of General Schuyler, first
published in 1873, ^^ the Reports of the Regents of the
University on the Boundaries of the State of New York, we
think this connection may fairly be demonstrated. General
Schuyler was delegate to Congress from New York in 1779.
On the twenty-ninth of January, 1780, he addressed a letter
from Albany, to the New York legislature, which gives us
the key to their act of the nineteenth of February. General
Schuyler had been advocating in Congress a treaty with the
Cayuga Indians. "Whilst the report of the committee on
the business I have alluded to," he says, "was under con-
sideration, a member moved, in substance, that the Com-
missioners for Indian Affairs in the Northern Department
should require from the Indians of the Six Nations, as a pre-
liminary Article, a cession of part of their country, and that
the territory so to be ceded should be for the benefit of the
United States in general and grantable by Congress." The
first question is, who was this member? The policy recom-
mended in the above motion is very suggestive of some
Maryland delegate. On referring to the Journals of Con-
gress for the above discussion, we find two motions on the
subject mentioned by General Schuyler; the first was made
by Mr, Forbes of Maryland and seconded by Mr. Houston
of New Jersey; the other was made by Mr. Marchant of
Rhode Island and seconded by Mr. Forbes, Both motions
were defeated, but that which alarmed General Schuyler, and
of which he thought it necessary to unburden himself to his
constituents, was simply this : " We had a few days after," he
says, " a convincing proof that an idea prevailed that this
and some other States ought to be divested of part of their

Land Cessions to the United States. 31

territory for the benefit of the United States, when a member
afforded us the perusal of a resolution, for which he intended
to move the House, purporting that all the lands within the
limits of any of the United States, heretofore grantable by
the king of Great Britain whilst these States (then Colonies)
were in the dominion of that prince, and which had not been
granted to individuals, should be considered as the joint
property of the United States and disposed of by Congress
for the benefit of the whole Confederacy " We have searched
in vain for the above resolution in the Journals of Congress,
although, from internal evidence, there is little doubt but
that it came from the same source as the original motion,
which so alarmed General Schuyler.

The chief importance which this letter to the New York
legislature has for us, in this connection, is the revelation it
affords of the growing influence of the Maryland policy in
Congress. General Schuyler confesses that the opposition
to the original motion [of Mr. Forbes] was chiefly based
upon the expediency of such an assertion of Congressional
authority while endeavoring to secure a reconciliation with
the Indians. In private conversation, the General had ascer-
tained that certain gentlemen, who represented States in
the same circumstances as New York in the matter of land
claims, were inclined to support the resolution in its new
form. It was urged by the friends of the proposed resolu-
tion, that a reasonable limitation of the land claims would
prevent controversy ^^and rem,ove the obstacle which pre-
vented the completion of the Confederation'^ General
Schuyler says he endeavored, with great discretion, to ascer-
tain the idea of the advocates of this measure as to what
would constitute a reasonable limitation of the claims. " This
they gave," he says, " by exhibiting a map of the country, on
which they drew a line from the north-west comer of Penn-
sylvania (which in that map was laid down as on Lake Erie)
through the strait that leads to Ontario and through that
Lake and down the St. Lawrence to the forty-fifth degree of

32 Maryland's Influence upon

latitude, for the bounds of the State in that quarter. Vir-
ginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, they proposed to re-
strict by the Alleghany Motmtains, or at the farthest by the
Ohio, to where that river enters the Mississippi and by the
latter river to the south bounds of Georgia — ^That all the
Territory to the west of these limits should become the
property of the Confederacy. We found this matter had
been in contemplation some time, the delegates from North
Carolina having then already requested instructions from
their constituents on the subject, and my colleagues were in
sentiment with me that it should be humbly submitted to the
Legislature, if it would not be proper to communicate their
pleasure in the premises by way of instruction to their ser-
vants in Congress." Such were the appeals of congressmen
to their constituents before national interests were fully rec-
ognized and before National Government was developed
from grounds of necessity. But this letter clearly indicates
the influence of the Maryland idea and the growth of a truly
national sentiment in Congress, which was destined to find
expression in that famous resolution of the sixth of Sep-
tember, 1780, wherein a general land cession was first rec-
ommended to the States holding title to western territory.

It will be seen upon examination of the proceedings of
the New York legislature,^ that this letter from General
Schuyler was the immediate occasion of the passage of an
act by the Senate and Assembly of that State, called "An
act to facilitate the completion of the articles of confederation
and perpetual union among the United States of America.''
In this act, which was passed the nineteenth of February,
1780, New York authorized her delegates in Congress to
make either an unreserved or a limited cession of her western
lands according as these delegates should deem it expedient.
This act was read in Congress on the seventh of March.

* Reprinted in full in the Report of Regents of the University on
the Boundaries of the State of New York, pp. 141-149. For the act
itself see Journals of CJongress, III., p. 582.

Land Cessions to the United States. 33

On the sixth of Septem ber, 1780, a memorable date in the ^s»Jl^.
history of the land question, a report was made on the
Maryland Instructions, the Virginia Remonstrance, and the
above Act of the New York legislature. Although this
report did not recommend an examination of the points at
issue between Maryland and Virginia, it did recommend a
liberal cession of western lands by all States which laid
claim to such possessions. " It appears more advisable,"
said the committee, " to press upon those states which can
remove the embarrassments respecting the western country,
a liberal surrender of a portion of their territorial claims,
since they cannot be preserved entire without endangering
the stability of the general confederacy; to remind them how
indispensably necessary it is to establish the federal union on a

fixed and permanent basis, and on principles acceptable to
all its respective members ; how essential to public credit and
confidence, to the support of our army, to our tranquility at
home, our reputation abroad, to our very existence as a free,
sovereign and independent people; that they are fully per-
suaded the wisdom of the respective legislatures will lead
them to a full and impartial consideration of a subject so in-
teresting to the United States, and so necessary to the happy
establishment of the federal union ; that they are confirmed
in these expectations by a review of the before-mentioned act
of the legislature of New York, submitted to their consider-
ation; that this act is expressly calculated to accelerate the
Federal alliance, by removing, as far as depends on that
state, the impediment arising from the western country, and
for that purpose to yield up a portion of territorial claim for
the general benefit; Whereupon

Resolved, That copies of the several papers referred to the
committee be transmitted, with a copy of the report, to the
legislatures of the several states, and that it be earnestly
recommended to those states, who have claims to the west-

• em country, to pass such laws, and give their delegates in
Congress such powers as may effectually remove the only

\

34 MarylancTs Influence upon

obstacle to a final ratification of the articles of confederation;
and that the legislature of Maryland be earnestly requested
to authorize their delegates in Congress to stibscribe the said
articles^

But Maryland awaited some definite proposals from Vir-
ginia and the other States which laid claim to the western
lands. Madison, in a letter of September 12, 1780, remarks
with great significance, "As these exclusive claims formed
the only obstacle with Maryland, there is no doubt that a
compliance with this recommendation [of Congress] will
bring her into the Confederation."* Connecticut' soon
ofTered a cession of western lands, provided that she might
retain the jurisdiction. It is a remarkable fact that, at this
^v.\^\\^^ H period, Alexander Hamilton should have favored such a
reservation by States ceding lands to the Confederation. In
his proposals for constitutional reform, in a letter to James
Duane, of New York, dated September 3, 1780, he says that
Congress should be invested with the whole or a portion of
the western lands as a basis of future revenue, " reserving
the jurisdiction to the States by whom they are granted!* *

* Journals of Congress, m., p. 516.

' Madison Papers, p. 50.

■ This offer was made October 10, 1780. The terms of the legis-
latlve act show conclusively that the Maryland Instructions were
exercising their influence upon the country. " This Assembly talk-
ing into their consideration a Resolution of Ck)ngress of the 6th of
*^ _. September last, recommending to the several States whiciE'Eve"
vacant unappropriated Lands, lying within the limits of their re-
spective Charters and Claims, to adopt measures which may etiect-
ually remove the obstacle that prevents the ratification of the Ar-
ticles of confederation, together with the Papers from the States
of New York, Maryland and Virginia, which accompanied the
same, and being anxious for the accomplishment of an event most
desirable and important to the Liberty and Independence of this
rising Empire, will do everything in their power to facilitate the
same notwithstanding the objections which they have to several
parts of it Resolved, etr.— Laws of Connecticut, printed in Report,
of the Regents of the University on the Boundaries of the State of
New York, p. 157 (1873).

* Works of Hamilton, I., p. 157.

Land Cessions to the United States. 35

But the original idea of Maryland that the western country
should " be parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient,
and independent governments," was destined to prevail. On
the tenth of October, it was resolved by Congress that those
lands which should be ceded in accordance with the recom- .

mendation of the sixth of September, should not only be dis- ^^i^e Ja »
posed of for the benefit of the Confederation, but should be 5

formed into distinct republican States, which should become
members of the federal union and have the same rights of
sovereignty as the other States/ It was added, probably as
an inducement to Virginia to cede her western lands, that
Congress would reimburse any particular State for expenses
incurred, since the commencement of the war, in subduing
or defending any part of the western territory. The expedi-
tion of George Rogers Clarke, for the reduction of the
northwestern post^, had been undertaken by Virginia with-
out aid from Congress or from the Continental army,
and this fact had been urged by Virginia as a crowning title
to the lands northwest of the Ohio. But Virginia seems to
have acted upon the above recommendation of Congress,
for, by her act" of the second of January, 1781, she offered
to cede to the Confederation complete jurisdiction over all
lands northwest of the Ohio on certain conditions, the first
of which, in regard to the disposition of territory and the
formation of distinct republican States, was taken almost
verbatim from the above resolutions of Congress.

Howison, the historian of Virginia, admits that "this
cession was made with the immediate design of inducing all
the states to become parties to the Confederation," and " the
effect of Virginia's offer," he asserts, "was in accordance
with the hopes of its advocates, for Maryland became a
party to the Confederation."" If a desire to facilitate the

* Journals of Congress, III., p. 535.

'HenJng, Virginia Statutes at Large, X., p. 564, or Journals of
Congress, IV., p. 2C5.

"Howison, History of Virginia, II., p. 282.

36 Maryland's Influence upon

completion of the union was indeed the motive of the pro-
posed land cessions by New York and Virginia, as the lan-
guage of their legislative acts certainly justifies us in suppos-
ing, then alone the attitude of Maryland towards the Con-
federation must be regarded as a sufficient occasion for their
action, for Maryland was the only State which had not rati-
fied the Articles. The keystone to the old Confederation
was not laid until Maryland had virtually effected her object
and secured the offer of land cessions to the United States
from Virginia, as well as from New York and Connecticut
As Hildreth says of Maryland, " she made a determined
stand, steadily refusing her assent to the Confederation,
without some guarantee that the equitable right of the union
to these western regions should be respected."'

We may doubt, however, whether the action of Virginia,
independently of the previous offer by New York, would
have been sufficient to induce Maryland to join the Con-
federation, for Virginia had attached such obnoxious con-
ditions* to her proposed cession, that Congress as well as
Maryland was dissatisfied with the same. Virginia de-
manded, among other things, that Congress should g^uar-
antee to her the undisturbed possession of all lands south-
east of the Ohio and that claims of other parties to the
northwest territory should be annulled as infringing upon
the chartered rights of Virginia, for, in making the proposed
cession, Virginia evidently desired to put the Confederation
under as heavy an obligation as possible. These conditions,
which Congress pronounced " incompatible with the honor,
interests and peace of the United States,'" led to an encour-
agement of the New York offer, which was formally made
in Congress March i, 1781. On that very day, Maryland
ratified the Articles and the first legal union of the United
States was complete. The coincidence in dates is too strik-

* Hildreth, History of tho United States, IH., p. 399.

* Journals of Congress, IV., p. 2Ci6.
» lUd., p. 22.

Land Cessions to the United States. 37

ing to admit of any other explanation than that Maryland
and New York were acting with a mutual understanding.
An act authorizing the delegates from Maryland to sub-
scribe to the Articles had been read in Congress on the
twelfth of February. This act had been passed by the leg-
islature of that State ten days* before, indicating that the Vir-
ginia offer, of January 2, had not been wholly without in-
fluence upon Maryland, although her delegates appear to
have delayed signing the Articles until the New York offer
had been fully secured and the land question had been placed
upon a national basis. That Maryland was dissatisfied with
the partial and illiberal cession by Virginia is evident from
the closing paragraph of the above mentioned act of her leg-
islature. " It is hereby declared, that, by acceding to the
said Confederation, this State does not relinquish, or intend
to relinquish any right or interest she hath, with the other
united or confederated states, to the back country; but
claims the same as fully as was done by the legislature of this
state, in their declaration which stands entered on the Jour-
nals of Congress." Maryland furthermore declared that no
Article of the Confederation could or ought to bind her or
any other State to guarantee jurisdiction over the back lands
to any individual member of the confederacy.

The offer of Virginia, reserving to herself jurisdiction over
the County of Kentucky; the offer of Connecticut, with-
holding jurisdiction over all her back lands; and the offer of
New York, untrammeled by burdensome conditions and
conferring upon Congress complete jurisdiction over her
entire western territory, — ^these three offers were now promi-
nently before the country. ThecCiJipletion of the union by
Maryland had occasioned igreat rejoicing throughout the
States, and public sentiment was fast ripening for a truly
national policy with reference to the disposal of the western
lands. If we examine the Madison Papers and the Journals

* Febroaiy 2, 1781. Journals of Ckmgress, HI., pp. 576-7.

^

38 Maryland's Influence upon

of Congress from this time onward to 1783 we shall find that
congressional politics seem to turn upon three questions:
(i) finance, (2) the disposal of the western lands, and (3) the
admission of Vermont into the union. We shall find that
the question of providing for the public debt was insepar-
ably connected with the sale of the western lands, and that
the real reason why Vermont was excluded from the union
until 1 791 is to be sought for in the influence which the
New York land cession exerted upon party feeling in
Congress. These matters cannot be traced out here, and we
must briefly pass over the acceptance of the New York and
Virginia cessions, which occasioned so much debate and
controversy between the years 1781 and 1783.

A committee that had been appointed by Congress to
inquire into the claims of the diflferent States and land com-
panies, reported May i, 1782, in favor of accepting the offer
of New York, which had been made ten months before, on
the very day that Maryland had formally acceded to the
Confederation. One of the chief reasons assigned by
the above committee, why the offer of New York should be
preferred to that of Virginia, was that Congress, by accept-
ing the New York cession, would dLcqmrt jurisdiction^ over
the whole western territory belonging to the Six Nations
and their allies, whose lands, as we have seen, extended from
Lake Erie to the Cumberland Mountains, thus covering the
lands southeast of the Ohio, which Virginia desired to retain
within her own jurisdiction. On the twenty-ninth of Octo-
ber, 1782, Mr, Daniel Carroll, of Maryland^ moved that Con-
gress accept the right, title, jurisdiction, and claim of New
York, as ceded by the agents of that State on the first of
March, 1781. By the adoption of this motion, it was sup-
posed that the offers of Connecticut and Virginia had re-
ceived a decided rebuff, but, in the end, it was found neces-
sary to conciliate Virginia, before proceeding to dispose of
the western lands. On the thirteenth day of September,

^ Joiunals of Ck>ngress, IV., p. 22.

Lcmd Cessions to the United States. 39

1783, it was voted by Congress to accept the cession offered
by Virginia, of the territory northwest of the Ohio, provided
that State would waive the obnoxious conditions concerning
the guaranty of Virginia's boundary, and the annulling of
all other titles to the northwest territory. Virginia modified
her conditions as requested, and on the twentieth of Octo-
ber, 1783,* empowered her delegates in Congress to make the
cession, which was done by Thomas Jeflferson, and others,
March i, 1784, just three years after the accession of Mary-
land to the Confederation.

Massachusetts ceded her western lands, together with
jurisdiction over the same, April 19, 1 785, and Connecticut
followed September 14, 17S0, reserving, however, certain
lands south of Lake Erie for educational and other purposes.
This was the so-called " Connecticut Reserve," a tract nearly
as large as the present State of Connecticut. Washington
strongly condemned this compromise,' and Mr. Grayson
said it was a clear loss to the United States of about six
million acres already ceded by Virginia and New York.
Connecticut granted five thousand acres of this Reserve to
certain of her citizens, whose property had been burned or
destroyed during the Revolution, and the lands thus granted
were known as the Fire Lands. The remainder of the Re-
serve was sold in 1795 for $1,200,000, which sum has been
used for schools and colleges. Jurisdiction over this tract
was finally ceded to Congress, May,^3auj8oo, and thus, at ^/.
the close of the century, the accession of the northwest terri-
tory was complete.'

^ See Hening's Statutes, XI., pp. 326-28.

* Writings of Washington, IX., p. 178.

' For deed of cession, see Land Laws of the United States, p. 107.
James A. Garfield's paper on the " Discovery and Ownership of
the Northwestern Torritoiy, and Settlement of the Western Re-
serve,'* contains some valuable matter. It is No. 20 of the publi-
cations of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical
Society, 1874.

Although, in this paper, we are chiefly concerned with the origin
of the Northwest Territory, we have thought it not improper to

40 Maryland's Influence upon

We have thus traced the process by which the great land
cessions were effected, and have seen that it was primarily
the opposition of Maryland to the grasping claims of Vir-
ginia, which put the train of compromise and land cessions
in motion. We have seen that New York first offered to
cede her western territory in order " to facilitate the comple-
tion of the Articles of Confederation,** and, that on the very
day her offer was formally made in Congress, Maryland laid
the keystone of the Confederation and, as we shall attempt
to show, of the American Union. We come now to the
third and last topic of our research, viz:

III. Origin of our Territorial Government and

National Sovereignty.

We have seen that Maryland first suggested the idea of
investing Congress with complete sovereignty over the west-
em country, and that it was primarily through her influence
that the land cessions were effected. The constitutional
importance of this acquisition of territory by the Confedera-
tion has never been brought out in its true light and proper
historic connections. Writers have told us, indeed, how a
meeting of commissioners from Maryland and Virginia at
Alexandria, in 1785, to discuss and concert uniform commer-
cial regulations for these two States, was the original point

append the dates of those land cessions which were immediately
occasioned by the above, and of those later accessions, by pur-
chase or conquest, which have more than doubled our national
domain:

South Carolina Cession, 1787

North Carolina " 1790

Geor^a " 1802

Louisiana Purchase, 1808

Spanish Cession of Florida, 1819

Texas Annexation, 1845

First Mexican Cession, 1848

Texas Cession, 1850

Second Mexican Cession, or the Gadsden Purchase, 185^
Alaska, 1867

Land Cessions to the United States. 41

of departure which led to the Annapolis and Philadelphia
Conventions, and hence to the adoption of the present con-
stitution; but no investigator appears to have discovered the
intimate connection between the Virginia land cession of
1784, which we have just noticed, and this friendly confer-
ence between Maryland and Virginia, from which such great
events are said to flow. What light, for example, is thrown
upon that meeting in Alexandria by the following passage
from a letter of James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, written
in March, 1784, about a fortnight after the Virginia cession,
but a full year before the above commercial convention was
brought about! "The good humor,'' Madison* says, "into
which the cession of the back lands must have put Mary-
land, forms an apt crisis for any negotiations which may be
necessary."

We have heard, also, that these Alexandria commissioners
went to Mount Vernon and there conferred with George
Washington, who, as there is some reason to believe, first
suggested a national convention to concert uniform com-
mercial regulations for the whole country; but no one has
ever shown how the first steps towards the organization of
our public domain into new States were also suggested by
George Washington and not by Thomas Jeflferson, as is
commonly supposed. The idea of parcelling out the west-
em country " into free, convenient and independent govern-
ments " was first proclaimed by Maryland in those famous
Instructions to her delegates, but the first definite plan for
the formation of new States in the west is to be found in a
letter* written the seventh of September, 1783, by General
Washington to James Duane, member of Congress from
New York. The letter contains a series of wise observa-
tions concerning " the line of conduct proper to be observed,
not only toward the Indians, but for the government of tlie
citizens of America in their settlement of the western coun-

* Writings of Madison, I., p. 74.

• Sparks* Life and Writings of Washington, Vni., p. 477.

42 Maryland's Influence upon

try." Washington's suggestions in regard to laying out two
new States are particularly interesting and valuable from an
historical point of view, because the formation which he
recommends for them bears a striking resemblance to the
present shape of Ohio and Michigan, whereas JeflFerson's
original suggestions for ten States in the northwest, lying
in tiers, between meridians and parallels of latitude, was
never adopted, and fortunately, perhaps for the reputation
of the country; for JeflFerson would have named these States
Sylvania, Michig^ia, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Metropota-
niia, lUinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Peli-
sipia!' The practical suggestions of George Washington
with reference to adopting an Indian policy and some defi-
nite scheme for organizing the western territory, were
adopted almost word for word in a series of resolutions by
Congress, which are to be found in the Secret Journals of
that body, under the date of October 15, 1783.* In refer-
ring to the regular Journal of Congress for the above date,
we find the report of a committee consisting of Mr. Duane
of New York, Mr. Peters of Pennsylvania, Mr. DanieP
Carroll, of Maryland, and two other gentlemen, to which
committee sundry letters and papers concerning Indian
affairs had been referred. The committee acknowledge in
their report that they have conferred with the commander"

^ National Intelligencer, August 26, 1847. Notes on the Ordinance
of 1787, by Peter Force. Sparks* Life and Writings of Washing-
ton, IX., p. 48.

*Dr. Austin Scott, formerly of the Johns Hopkins University,
now Professor of Blstory in Rutgers Ck>llege, was the first to dis-
cover this remarkable coincidence.

* Charles Carroll of CarroUton left Congress in 1778. Daniel Car-
roll was delegate from 1780 to 1784 and again from 1789 to 1791.
He signed the Articles of Confederation in the name of Maryland,
and also the present Constitution. He seems to have exercised con-
siderable influence in Congress. He was three times elected chair-
man and once appointed commissioner to treat with the Southern
Indians, but declined the office on account of ill-health.

Land Cessions to the United States. 43

in-chief. When now we recall the fact that the chairman
of the above committee was James Duane, the very man
to whom Washington addressed his letter of the seventh
of September, the whole matter clears up, and George
Washington stands revealed as the moving spirit in the first
active measures for the organization of the Public Lands.

Six days after the date of Washington's letter to James
Duane, the report of the committee on the Virginia cession
was called up, and it was voted by Congress to accept Vir-
ginia's oflfer under the conditions which we have previously
stated. That which interests us in this connection is the
attempt made \yy Mr, Carroll^ of Maryland, to postpone the
consideration of the Virginia oflfer for the adoption of an
important resolution in which the rights of absolute sover-
eignty over the western territory are claimed for the United
States, " as one undivided and independent nation, with all
and every power and right exercised by the king of Great
Britain over the said territory." Mr. Carroll proposed in
his resolution the appointment of a committee to report on
the most eligible parcels of land for the formation of one or
more convenient and independent States. Although un-
successful, this is the boldest attempt that is recorded on
the Journals of Congress for the assertion of national sov-
ereignty and of the rights of eminent domain over the western
territory}

About one month later. Congress having voted to accept
the Virginia oflfer, on certain conditions, we find the above
committee on Indian aflfairs, of which Mr. Duane, of New
York, was chairman, and Mr, Carroll, of Maryland, a mem-
ber, reporting a series of resolutions in which the influence
of Washington may be clearly traced. It was declared to
be a wise and necessary measure to erect a district of the
western territory into a distinct government, and it was
resolved that a committee should be appointed to report a
plan for connecting with the Confederation, by a temporary

* Journals of Congress, IV., pp. 263-265.

44 MarylofuPa Influence upon

government, the inhabitants of the new district until their
number and circumstances should entitle them to form a
permanent constitution for themselves, on republican prin*
ciples, and, as citizens of a free, sovereign, and independent
State, to be admitted into the union. In these resolutions
lies the germ of Jefferson's ordinance, which was reported
March i, 1784. This fact and the connection of Duane's
resolutions with the original suggestions by George Wash-
ington have never before been brought out The influence
exerted by the sage of Mount Vernon upon the Alexandria
commissioners towards the practical reform of our commer-
cial regulations was like that exercised in the above scheme
for establishing a territorial government northwest of the
Ohio, even before that territory had been fully ceded.
Washington's plans were what the Germans would call
*« bahnbrechendy His suggestions were the pioneer
thoughts of genius; they opened up the ways and pointed
out the means.

We shall not be able in this paper to consider the Ordi-
nance of 1784, much less that of 1787, for the government
of the North-West Territory. Both of these themes are
extremely important and require a careful investigation.
We must be content with having foimd the missing link
which connects the Ordinance of 1784 with the practical
suggestions of George Washington and with the orig^inal
idea of Maryland that Congress should assume national
sovereignty over the western territory. Although this idea,
which Maryland proclaimed as early as 1777, did not obtain
that formal recognition which Mr. Carroll hoped to secure
by his resolution of the thirteenth of September, 1783, yet,
in the nature of things, arose a sovereign relation between
the people of the United States and this territorial common-
wealth in the west.

And just here lies the immense significance of this acqui-
sition of Public Lands. It led to the exercise of National
Sovereignty in the sense of eminent domain, a power totally
foreign to the Articles of Confederation. Congress had not
the slightest authority to organize a government for the

Land Cessions to the United States. 45

western territory. The Ordinance of 1784 was never re-
ferred to the States for ratification, and yet its articles were
termed a " charter of compact/' and it was declared that
they should stand as ^^fundamental constitutions'*^^ between '
the thirteen original States and each of the new States
therein described. Consider, moreover, the importance of
the Ordinance of 1787 in establishing the bulwarks of free
soil beyond the Ohio and in providing for the educational
interests of the Great North-West. " I doubt," says Daniel
Webster,^ "whether one single law of any law-maker, an-

* Journals of Congress, IV., p. 380.

•Webster's Works, HI., p. 263. Webster was mistaken in as-
cribing the authorship of this famous Ordinance to Nathan Dane.
Mr. W. P. Poole, of Chicago, in his admirable monograph on the
Ordinance of 1787 (see North American Review, April, 1876) has
proved conclusively that Mr. Dane could not have been the author,
and has made out a strong case for Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Massa-
chusetts. The same view is taken in a paper read before the New
Jersey Historical Society, May 16, 1872. See Proceedings of that
society. Second Series (1867-74) m., p. 76. There is a paper on the
" Ordinance of 1787 " by Edward Coles, formerly governor of Illi-
nois (1822-26), which was read before the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, Jime 9, 1856, and was issued by the Press of the Society In
that year. It contains, however, many errors, which Mr. Poole has
now set asida Poole's article is reprinted in pamphlet form by
Welch, Bigelow & Co., Cambridge, 1876. For a further discussion
of the orisrinof the Ordinance of 1787, see " The St. CJlalr Pap«s,"
and a review of the same in Tfee Natiouy May 4, 1882, an extract
from which is hera reprinted:

The origin of this famous Ordinance, which established free soil,
land titles, townships, schools, civil and religious liberty, beyond
the Ohio, and the idea of a growing system of federal States, grad-
ually organized from the national domain under the sovereign con-
trol of Congress, is one of the most disputed questions of American
constitutional history. Daniel Webster, in his speech against Hayne
on the Western land question, took occasion to claim the author-
ship of the Ordinance for Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and said,
moreover, that " It was carried by the North, and by the North
alone." Hayne and Benton at once opposed this Northern view,
and claimed for the South the chief credit in passing the Ordi-
nance, and the honor of authorship for Thomas Jefferson (Benton,
i., 133-6). Since that memorable debate, partisans of Massachu-
setts and Yirgiiiia, of the North and South, have battled for the
pOBsesiE^on of historic ground, which in point of fact belongs to
neither party, but to both. The side of Jefferson is best supported

\

46 Maryland's Influence upon

cient or modem, has produced effects of more distinct,
marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787."
This Ordinance is an exhibition of national sovereignty
on the grandest scale, yet there was no authority for jj^
The present Constitution had not been adopted, and yet
Congress was proceeding to legislate on national interests
with a boldness which might well have startled those who
believe in the doctrine that Government derives its just

by Hon. Edward Ck)les, a Virginian, at one time Grovemor of Illi-
nois, in a paper published in 1856 by the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, on the Ordinance of 1787. The Dane point of view
is well presented, first, in Dane*s own letter to Webster, printed
in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Feb-
ruary, 1869, and, secondly, in Spencer's 'History of the United
States ' (ii., 202-9), which contains a letter of Dane to Rufus King,
written shortly after the passage of the Ordinance. Broader than
these partisan views are the judgment of Peter Force in the 2fa-
tUmal Intelligencer, August 26, 1847 (reprinted in the St. Glair
Papers); of W. F. Poole, in the North American RevietD, April, 1876;
and of the editor of the St. Clair Papers, who follows Mr. Poole In
the view that the Ordinance was passed at the instance of Dr.
Manasseh Cutler, Ministerial Agent for the Ohio company, com-
posed of N(^w Engj^nd men, and with power from them and others
fo negotiate the purchase* of 5,000,000 acres of land, but suggests
that Mr. Poole " gives too little consideration to the influence of
others." Mr. Smith mentions the influence of St. Clair, who, by
virtue of his position as President of Congress, appointed a com-
mittee favorable to JlJCc^Cutter^ scheme, and thus supplemented
the efforts of that estimable divine, f rom Ipswich, Massachusetts,
who, in these degenerate times, would perhapslSe called a lobbyist.
Mr. Poole, if we understand him, does not claim that Dr. CSfler
actually framed the Ordinance, but that he influenced its revision
and successful passage. Mr. Smith's view that there were " many
authors " is sound. The Ordinance of 1787, like all products of
wise legislation, was created not by one man or one section of
country, but by the concurrent wisdom of many men and by the
unanimous vote of Congress. Jefferson and Dane, Pickering and
King, of Massachusetts, Carrington and Lee, of Virginia, Kean, of
South Carolina, and Smith, of New York, the moral andjeduca-
tipnal interests of New England (represented by DrTTJutier), the
economic interests of the whole country (providing for its public
debts by the sale of public lands), the " private speculation " of
" many of the principal characters in America " (Cutler's Diary),
the personal popularity of St. Clair with the Southern party, whidi
wished to reimburse the General for 'his Revolutionary losses by

Land Cessions to the United States.

47

powers from the consent of the governed. Madison, in a
contribution to the Federalist, avails himself of this fact,
that Congress was already exercising sovereignty, as an
argument for establishing constitutional government with
defined powers. " It is now no longer a point of specula-
tion and hope,'' he says, "that the western territory is a
mine of vast wealth to the United States: . . . Congress
have assumed the administration of this stock. They have

making him Governor of the Northwest— all these influences, and
many more besides, entered into the formation and adoption of
the Ordinance of 1787.

The germ of this Magna Charta of the West lay in Jefferson's
idea of " a charter of compact^' the articles of which should *' stand
as fundamental conslltutioDSc** conditions " Mr. Smith and Peter
Force have it, cf. Journals of Congress, iv., 380] between the thir-
teen original States, and each of the several States now newly
described," which Jefferson, according to the first draft which
Peter Force copied, would have named Sylvania, Michigania,
Gheronesus, Assenisipia (from Assenisipi or Rock River), Metro-
potamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisi-
pia! The country has escaped some of Jefferson's fancies, but his
idea of a federal compact between the East and West was good,
and it was adopted by Congress XprS^^'SS^'^My'^i^SrTe^^lSbpted July
13, 1787, in the so-called " articles of compact," which, as Nathan
Dane said to Webster, are the most important part of the Ordi-
nance and were made " to endure forever." Federal unity with
the great West was a Jeffersonian idea, and it was the main idea
of the Ordinance. The .a nti-^ave ry clause, which Jefferson would
have applied to the enSre W^t witiiout any Ohio or Missouri
compromise, was only a corollary to his main proposition. The
fugitive -slave clause, introduced by the consent of the North into
the ndbte''t>nMfiahce of 1787, was perhaps another corollary; but
it was not drawn by Jefferson. The original idea of a compact
grew, according to principles of natural selection, from its Con-
gressional environment. The representatives of Virginia intro-
duced a saving clause in favor of the laws and customs of the
French villagers beyond the Ohio, who had " professed themselves
citizens of Virginia." Massachusetts, through the legal knowledge
of Nathan Dane and the diplomacy of Dr. Cutler, provided for the
welfare of her colonists by incorporating principles from her own
Constitution of 1780, which, like all State governments in America
at that time, was based upon old English Institutions, the Bill of
Rights, and the Common Law. Such was the origin of the Ordi-
nance of 1787— not a sudden creation, but a slow, historic growth,
the product of many minds and many interests working toward a
common end.

M^

H^^ '

lU

I

48 Maryland? 8 Influence upon

begun to render it productive. Congress have undertaken
to do more: — ^they have proceeded to form new States; to
erect temporary governments; to appoint officers for them;
and to prescribe the conditions on which such States shall
be admitted into the confederacy. All this has been done,
and done without the least color of constitutional authority.
Yet no blame has been whispered: no alarm has been
sounded. A great and independent fund of revenue is pass-
ing into the hands of a single body of men, who can raise
troops to an indefinite number, and appropriate money to
their support for an indefinite period of time. ... I mean
not by anything here said to throw censure on the measures
which have been pursued by Congress. I am sensible
they could not have done otherwise. The public interest,
the necessity of the case, imposed upon them the task of
overleaping their constitutional limits.''*

Madison here reveals the true basis of political sov-
ereignty. Public good and the necessities of the territorial
situation are the sovereign law of every political common-
wealth. The fundamental idea of a republic is the com-
mon good (respublica) and the radical notion of politics
(j:6Xi<:') is government of dz/i/ society, which is first united
by material interests. The good old word commonweedth
best expresses to the English mind not only the controlling
principle of state-life which is the common weal, but the
necessary condition of political existence which is the pos-
session of a common country or territorial domain.

It was the public interest of the original States in the
western lands, as a means of satisfying army claims and
defraying the expenses of the war, which held together thir-
teen de facto sovereign powers after independence had been
achieved and the recommendations of Congress had be-
come a laughing-stock. The Confederation, in itself, was a
mere league and Congress little more than a committee of

* Federalist No. 38., Jan. 15, 178a (Bditlon of J. C. Hamilton^
1875, p. 299.)

Land Cessions to the United States. 49

public safety appointed by thirteen colonies which desired
territorial independence in common, but self-government
and state-sovereignty for each. When the war was over,
these jealous powers would have fallen apart if there had
been no other influence than Congress to hold them to-
gether. It was only external pressure which had united
the colonies, and without permanent territorial interests
Congress would have been, indeed, " a shadow without the
substance,'' as Washington termed it, and the country, " one
nation to-day and thirteen to-morrow," as best suited the
purposes of individual States. But out of this sovereign
relation which was established between the United States
and their public domain, was developed a truly national
sovereignty. Madison* speaks of this new manifestation
of energy as " an excrescent power," growing " out of the
lifeless mass " of the Confederation, and yet he justifies the
acts of Congress for the government of the western terri-
tory, on grounds of necessity and of the public good. A
surer foundation for national sovereignty has never been
discovered. Political Science no longer defends the Social
Contract as the basis of government. The best writers of
our day reject those atomistic theories of State which would
derive national sovereignty from compact, or arithmetical
majorities, and not from the commonwealth, or the soli-
darity of public interests.

Government is derived from the living necessities and
united interests of a people. The State does not rest upon
compact or written constitutions. There is something
more fundamental than delegated powers or chartered sov-
ereignty. The State is grounded upon that community of
material interests which arises from the permanent relation
of a people to some fixed territory. Government can exist
among men who have no enduring interest in land, as, for
example, among nomadic hordes, but States are territorial,
although capable of organic development. Dynasties may
change and the principles of Government become wholly

' Federalist, No. 88, p. 299.

50 Maryland's Influence upon

republican, but England will endure so long as a sovereign
and abiding relation subsists between the English people
and their island domain/ The element of continuity in
every state life is directly dependent upon this sovereign
relation between a people and some fixed territory. Re-
move a people from their domain and you destroy their
State. If the Puritans of Massachusetts had accepted the
invitation' of Lord Baltimore and removed to Maryland, it
is to be presumed that Plymouth Rock and the Bay State
would have fallen into oblivion or acquired a totally differ-
ent place in New England history. The Pilgrims' Compact
is often cited as an example of the " Social Contract," but
if the people of New England had accepted CromwelPs
advice* and migrated to tropical Jamaica, it is not likely
that their compact would have established a New England
in that fertile island, which pours its wealth so " prodigally
into the lap of industry." Territorial influences enter so
largely into the constitution and political life of a State that
we cannot conceive of a political commonwealth as existing
independently of certain material conditions.* It is, there-
fore, but a partial truth when the lawyer-poet' says:

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights and knowing dare maintain,

*******

These constitute a state.

Although a free and sovereign people is tmdoubtedly the
animating life of the American Republic, yet that life has a

^ Das Staatsgebiet ist entschieden f ttr den Staat und seine Ent-
wickelung von fundamentaler Bedeutung, was schon daraus her-
vorgeht, dass man gew5hnlich in der Benennung den Staat mit
demselben identificirt Winkler, Das Staatsgebiet. Eine cultur-
geographische Studie, p. 3, Leipzig, 1877.

■ Bancroft, History of the United States, I., P- 253.

• lUa., p. 446.

*Der Staat .... geht aus nattlrlichen Bedingungen hervor;
physische Verh&ltnisse sind die Grundlage seiner Existenz und
Entwiekelung. Winkler, Das Staatsgebiet, p. 3.

* Sir William Jones, first translator of the Laws of Manu, and a
pioneer of Comparative Jurisprudence as well as of Comparative
Philology.

'^

Land Cessions to the United States. 51

material basis of which writers on American cotistitutional
history have taken too little cognizance. No State without
a people; no State without land:^ thesie are the fundamental
principles of political science and were recognized as early
as the days of Aristotle.* The common interest of all the
States in our western territory was the first truly national
commonwealth upon American shores, for it bound these
States together into a permanent political union and estab-
lished a sovereign relation between the United States and a
territorial domain. Without public interests of a solid and
lasting character, the militar y unio n of thirteen de facto
sovereign powers would never have grown into a national
union with inherent rights of sovereignty. " Constitutions
are not made," says Sir jTames^TSIacintosh, "they grow.''
The American Republic is the product, not of concessions
or consensus, but of development from the existing relations
of things. Political interests of a lasting character were
entailed upon the Confederation by the possession of a ter-
ritorial commonwealth. " From the very origin of the gov-
ernment," said Daniel Webster in his first great speech on
the Public Lands in answer to Mr. Hayne of South Caro-
lina, "these western lands and the just protection of those
who had settled or should settle on them, have been the
leading objects in our policy."*

But we have seen that even before the adoption of our
present form of government, these western lands consti-
tuted the most vital and absorbing question in American
politics. The acquisition of a territorial commonwealth by
these States was the foundation of a permanent union ; it
was the first solid arch upon which the framers of our
Constitution could build.

^Bluntschli, Staatslehre fur OebUdete^ p. 12. "Klein Staat ohne
Land." See also Lehre vom modernen Staat ^ I., p. 15. (Stuttgart,
1875.)

•Aristotle, Polit. m., cap. 5, 14.

• Webster's Works, III., p. 251.

X

62 MarylofuPs Influence upon

When now we consider the practical results arising from
Maryland's prudence in laying the key-stone to the old
Confederation only after the land claims of the larger States
had, through her influence, been placed upon a national
basis, we may say, with truth, that it was a National Com-
monwealth which Maryland founded. It seems strange
that so little attention has been devoted to the question of
Public Lands* and their influence upon the constitutional
development of this coimtry. In view of the fact that the
greatest conflict in American politics has been for the or-
ganization of the West upon the principles of the Ordinance
of 1787, it would seem as though the subject of the Terri-
torial Commonwealth of the American Union might justly
demand from our students of history something more than
" the cold respect of a passing glance."

The Ordinance of 1787 is but the legal outcome of Mary-
land's successful policy in advocating National Sovereignty
over the Western Lands. The leading principles of this
Ordinance are now recognized in all parts of our country,
but those principles were long ago approved of by Mary-
land, although in a somewhat singular manner.

In 1833, when the vessel sailed which carried to western
Africa the emigrants who were to establish, under the aus-
pices of the Maryland State Colonization Society, the col-
ony of Maryland in Liberia, at Cape Palmas, the agent of
the society took with him two documents, the one a Consti-
tution, containing a Bill of Rights, and the other an Ordi-
nance for the government of the territory about to be ac-

^ The author is indebted to his former teacher, Dr. Bmll Otto, of
Heidelberg, now deceased, for a copy of a dissertation on Die Puiblic
Lands der Vereinigten Staaten von NordrAmerika. Ina/aguralrDisser-
tation zur Erlangung der Doctorumrde von der iuriatiacJien FactUt&t
der Friedrich-Wilhelms- Universitdt zu Berlin, . . . von James P. Fos-
ter aus Neu>York, Berlin, 19 April, 1877. Although Dr. Foster has
anticipated his countryman and former fellow-student, by scienti-
fically investigating the question of "Public Lands," still, as a
lawyer, he has considered legal relations rather than historic pro-
cesses, and has not touched at all upon the points made in this
article.

Land Cessions to the United States. 53

quired. The work of preparing these instruments was done
by Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, then the corresponding secre-
tary of the society and one of its most active members. The
animating principles of these instruments, and, to some ex-
tent, their very form and substance, were furnished by the
famous Ordinance of 1787. When the Constitution and
Ordinance were reported to the society by the secretary,
they were unanimously adopted without alteration. Sub-
sequently a committee consisting of Mr. Latrobe, Mr.
Evans, and Mr. Andersen, prepared a code of laws for the
redress of injuries and for the regulation of property, to-
gether with a collection of legal forms, which have been in
use up to the present time. The work of this committee
was done by Mr. Evans.*

From the remarks of the President of the Historical So-
ciety after this paper had been read, it would appear that he
and his colleagues in the Maryland Colonization movement
scarcely realized how consistent their action was with the
ancient policy of this State, when the legal outcome of that
policy, or the Ordinance of 1787, was thus unanimously
adopted for the government of Maryland's own Colony in
Liberia. Extremes meet in History as well as in Politics,
and the present age could read a yv(o0i traurdv^ or 'know
thyself,' in the records of the past. It was the custom of
Greek colonists, setting out from Athens or Corinth, to take
with them fire from the prytaneum of their native city, as
emblematic of the political life which they were to kindle
upon some distant shore. Unlike the Greek colonists in
political genius or capacity for freedom, but like them in
the desire, common to all colonists, of improving their

* See Memoir of Hugh Davey Evans, LiL. D. By the Rev. Hall
Harrison, M. A. Hartford: printed by the Church Press (Company,
1870, p. 159. For the two instruments first mentioned and for the
code of laws, see Constitution and Laws of Maryland in Liberia.
Baltimore, 1847. The Ordinance of 1787 is printed hi the Land
Laws of the United States, pp. 356-61, and also in the Old Journals
of Ck>ngrefi8, lY., pp. 752-54.

54 Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to U. 8.

material condition, the emigrants to Liberia from this State
gladly received from Maryland a system of equal laws.
Who shall say that the Ordinance which was given them
for their future government was wholly a borrowed fire,
when the original Ordinance of 1787 is itself a historic pro-
duct of Maryland's ancient zeal in founding a National
Commonwealth.

dttM-.

v. o

WASHINGTON'S INTEREST

IN

WESTERN LANDS.

Perkins, in his Annals of the West, says that Washington
was one of the foremost speculators in Western Lands after
the close of the French and Indian War/ The Washing-
ton-Crawford Letters, which were edited in a thorough and
painstaking manner by C. W. Butterfield,* throw a strong
light upon the enterprising nature of that man who was,
assuredly, " first in peace " and who, even if the Revolution
had not broken out, would have become the most active and
representative spirit in American affairs. Washington's
plans for the colonization of his western lands, by import-
ing Germans from the Palatinate, are but an index of the
direction his business pursuits might have taken, had not
duty called him to command the army and afterwards to
head the State. But the influence of some of these early
plans may be traced in Washington's later measures of
public policy and in his ideas for the internal improvement
of his country. Reserving, however, for another paper
Washington's pioneer efforts for opening up communica-
tion with the West, let us examine a few portions of the
documentary evidence relating to his early land specula-
tions. There is nothing to Washington's discredit in any

^ Perkins, Annals of the West, p. 110.

' Washinsrton-Crawf ord Letters concerning Western Lands. By
0. W. Bntterfleld. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1877.

56 Washington^a Interest in

of the Washington-Crawford Letters, but the following ex-
tracts may afford an interesting revelation of the worldly-
wisdom of the Father of his Country.

In Washington's letter to his friend, Crawford/ dated
September 21, 1767, the whole scheme of taking up the
bounty lands is broached: " I offered in my last to join you
in attempting to secure some of the most valuable lands in
the King's part, which I think may be accomplished after
awhile, notwithstanding the proclamation that restrains it
at present, and prohibits the settling of them at all ; for I can
never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but
this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient
to quiet the minds of the Indians. It must fall, of course,
in a few years, especially when those Indians consent to our
occupying the lands. Any person, therefore, who neglects
the present opportunity of hunting out good lands, and in
some measure marking and distinguishing them for his
own, in order to keep others from settling them, will never
regain it If you will be at the trouble of seeking out the
lands, I will take upon me the part of securing them, as
soon as there is a possibility of doing it, and will, moreover,
be at all the cost and charges of surveying and patenting
the same. You shall then have such a reasonable propor-
tion of the whole as we may fix upon at our first meeting;
as I shall find it necessary for the better furthering of the
design, to let some of my friends be concerned in the
scheme, who must also partake of the advantages.

* William Crawford was a Virginia officer, who had served In
the French and Indian War and who, in early life, had learned
the art of surveying from Washington. Crawford removed to the
back country in 1766 and settled at " Stewart's Crossing,** on the
Yonghiogheny river. In the following year, Washington began a
correspondence with his old friend which lasted mitil 1781. The
particulars concerning Crawford's awful death by torture, at the
hands of Indian savages, are given in *< Crawford's Campaign
against Sandusky in 1782,** by C. W. Butterfield, the editor of the
above correspondence. See also Perkins, Annals of the West, pp.
246-7.

Western Lands. 57

" By this time it may be easy for you to discover that my
plan is to secure a good deal of land. You will conse-
quently come in for a very handsome quantity; and as you
will obtain it without any costs or expenses, I hope you
will be encouraged to begin your search in time. I would
choose, if it were practicable, to get large tracts together;
and it might be desirable to have them as near your settle-
ment or Fort Pitt as they can be obtained of good quality,
but not to neglect others at a greater distance, if fine bodies
of it lie in one place. It may be worthy of your inquiry
to find out how the Maryland back line will run,* and what
is said about laying off NeaPs grant. I will enquire partic-
ularly concerning the Ohio Company, that we may know
what to apprehend from them. For my own part, I should
have no objection to a grant of land upon the Ohio, a good
way below Pittsburgh, but would first willingly secure some
valuable tracts nearer at hand.

" I recommend, that you keep this whole matter a secret,
or trust it only to those in whom you can confide, and who
can assist you in bringing it to bear by their discoveries of
land. This advice proceeds from several very good
reasons, and, in the first place, because I might be censured
for the opinion I have given in respect to the King's proc-
lamation, and then, if the scheme I am now proposing to
you were knowri, it might give the alarm to others, and,

*In regard to this point, Crawford replies, September 29, 1767:
" There is nothing to be feared from the Maryland back line, as it
does not go over the momitain." (Washington-Crawford Letters,
p. 10.) There had been a controversy, as we learn from Butter-
field, between Maryland and Virginia, respecting the exact where-
abouts of the said back line, for, in the Maryland charter, it was
defined as a meridian, extending from the " first fountain of the
Potomac ** to the northern limits of Terra Marice. Maryland claim-
ed the " first fountain of the north branch of the Potomac, as the
starting-point of this meridian line, whereas Virginia insisted that
the head of the south branch should be taken, for this would in-
fringe, to a less degree, upon the latter's western territory." Craw-
ford meant that, admitting Maryland's claim, the back line could
not be ran west of the mountains.

58 Washington's Interest in

by putting them upon a plan of the same nature, before we
could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, set the
different interests clashing, and, probably, in the end, over-
turn the whole. All this may be avoided by a silent man-
agement, and the operation carried on by you under the
guise of hunting game, which, you may, I presume, effectu-
ally do, at the same time you are in pursuit of land. When
this is fully discovered, advise me of it, and if there appears
but a possibility of succeeding at any time hence, I will have
the lands immediately surveyed, to keep others off, and
leave the rest to time and my own assiduity.

" If this letter should reach your hands before you set
out, I should be glad to have yoiu* thoughts fully expressed
on the plan here proposed, or as soon afterwards as conve-
nient; for I am desirous of knowing in due time how you
approve of the scheme. I am, etc"'

The following extract from Crawford's answer to the
above letter shows that the project suited him:

" With regard to looking out land in the King's part, I
shall heartily embrace yoiu* offer upon the terms you pro-
posed; and as soon as I get out and have my affairs settled
in regard to the first matters proposed, I shall set out in
search of the latter. This may be done under a hunting
scheme (which I intended before you wrote to me), and I
had the same scheme in my head, but was at a loss how to
accomplish it I wanted a person in whom I could confide
—one whose interest could answer my ends and his own.
I have had several offers, but have not agreed to any; nor
will I with any but yotwself or whom you think proper.''

In 1770, Washington crossed the Alleghanies and visited
his friend Crawford, to see how the latter had succeeded in
spying out the land. Washington's Journal of his tour to
the Ohio is very interesting and contains the most minute
details as to his impressions concerning the western coun-

* Washington-Crawford Letters, pp. 3-5, or Sparks* Life and Writ-
ings of Washington, n., pp. 346-50.

Western Lands. 59

try. Washington left his home at Mount Vernon on the
fifth of October and arrived at Crawford's on the morning
of the thirteenth. The following selections from his Jour-
nal will suffice to illustrate its tenor:

13th. — Set out about sunrise; breakfasted at the Great
Meadows — ^thirteen miles — ^and reached Captain Crawford's
about five o'clock. The land from Gist's to Crawford's
is very broken, although not mountainous; in spots ex-
ceedingly rich, and, in general, free from stones. Craw-
ford's is very fine land; lying on the Youghiogheny, at a
place commonly called Stewart's Crossing.

14th. — ^At Captain Crawford's all day. Went to see a
coal mine, not far from his house, on the banks of the river.
The coal seemed to be of the very best kind, burning freely,
and abundance of it.

15th. — ^Went to view some land, which Captain Craw-
ford had taken up for me near the Youghiogheny, distant
about twelve miles. This tract, which contains about one
thousand six hundred acres, includes some as fine land as
ever I saw, and a great deal of rich meadow. It is well
watered, and has a valuable mill-seat, except that the stream
is rather too slight, and, it is said, not constant more than
seven or eight months in the year; but, on account of the
fall, and other conveniences, no place can exceed it. In go-
ing to this land, I passed through two other tracts, which
Captain Crawford had taken up for my brothers, Samuel
and John. I intended to have visited the land, which
Crawford had procured for Lund Washington, this day
also, but, time falling short, I was obliged to postpone it.
Night came on before I got back to Crawford's. . . . The
lands, which I passed over to-day, were generally hilly, and
the growth chiefly white oak, but very good notwithstand-
ing; and, what is extraordinary, and contrary to the prop-
erty of all other lands I ever saw before, the hills are the
richest land; the soil upon the sides and summits of them
being as black as coal, and the growth walnut and cherry.

The flats are not so rich, and a good deal more mixed
with stone.

60 Washington's Interest in

[The lands above described were not taken up as bounty
lands, but under patents issued by the land-office of Penn-
sylvania. On the twentieth of October, Washington and
Crawford, with a small party of white men and Indians,
started on a trip down the Ohio, to view the lands on that
river and on the Great Kanawha, which Washington in-
tended to secure for himself and his friends, under the
proclamation of 1763, which authorized the granting of two
hundred thousand acres of bounty land to officers and sol-
diers who had served in the French and Indian War. The
party reached the confluence of the Great Kanawha and
Ohio rivers in twelve days from Pittsburgh.]

November ist — Before eight o'clock we set off with our
canoe up the river, to discover what kind of lands lay upon
the Kanawha. The land on both sides this river, just at
the mouth, is very fine; but on the east side, when you get
towards the hills, which I judge to be about six or seven
hundred yards from the river, it appears to be wet, and bet-
ter adapted for meadow than tillage. . . . We judged we
went up the Kanawha about ten miles to-day. . . .

2nd. — ^We proceeded up the river, with the canoe, about
four miles farther, and then encamped, and went hunting; *
killed five buffaloes and wounded some others, three deer,
&c- This country abounds in buffaloes and wild game of all
kinds, and also in all kinds of wild fowl, there being in the
bottoms a great many small, gtassy ponds, or lakes, which
are full of swans, geese, and ducks of different kinds. . . .

3d. — ^We set off down the river, on our return homeward,
and encamped at the mouth. At the beginning of the bot-
tom above the junction of the rivers, and at the mouth of
the branch on the east side, I marked two maples, an elm,
and hoop-wood tree, as a comer of the soldiers* lajid (if we
can get it), intending to take all the bottom from hence to
the rapids in the Great Bend into one survey. I also
marked at the mouth of another run, lower down on the
west side, at the lower end of the long bottom, an ash and
hoop-wood for the beginning of another of the soldiers'

Western Lands. 61

surveys, to extend up so as to include all the bottom in a
body on the west side. In coming from our last encamp-
ment up the Kanawha, I endeavored to take the courses and
distances of the river by a pocket compass, and by guess-
ing.

*********

December ist. — Reached home, having been absent nine
weeks and one day.^

The practical results of the above expedition appear in
the following advertisement in the Maryland Journal and
Baltimore Advertiser of August 20, 1773:

Mount Vernon in Virginia, /ufy 15, 1773.

The subscriber .having obtained patents for upwards of
twenty thousand acres of land on the Ohio and Great Kanaw-
ha (ten thousand of which are situated on the banks of the
first-mentioned river, between the mouths of the two Kanaw-
has, and the remainder on the Great Kanawha, or New
River, from the mouth or near it, upwards, in one con-
tinued survey) proposes to divide the same into any sized
tenements that may be desired, and lease them upon mod-
erate terms, allowing a reasonable number of years rent free,
provided, within the space of two years from next October,
three acres for every fifty contained in each lot, and pro-
portionably for a lesser quantity, shall be cleared, fenced,
and tilled; and that, by or before the time limited for the
commencement of the first rent, five acres of every hun-
dred, and proportionably, as above, shall be enclosed and
laid down in good grass for meadow; and moreover, that at
least fifty fruit trees for every like quantity of land shall be
planted on the Premises. Any persons inclinable to settle
on these lands may be more fully informed of the terms by
applying to the subscriber, near Alexandria, or in his ab-
sence to Mr. Lund Washington ; and would do well in com-
municating their intentions before the ist of October next.

* Writings of Washington, n., pp. 516-34.

62 Washington's Interest in

in order that a sufficient number of lots may be laid oflE to
answer the demand.

As these lands are among the first which have been sur-
veyed in the part of the country they lie in, it is almost
needless to premise that none can exceed them in luxuri-
ance of soil, or convenience of situation, all of them l)dng
upon the banks either of the Ohio or Kanawha, and abound-
ing with fine fish and wild fowl of various kinds, as also in
most excellent meadows, many of which (by the bountiful
hand of nature) are, in their present state, almost fit for the
scythe. From every part of these lands water carriage is
now had to Fort Pitt, by an easy communication; and from
Fort Pitt, up the Monongahela, to Redstone, vessels of con-
venient burthen, may and do pass continually; from whence
by means of Cheat River, and other navigable branches of
the Monongahela, it is thought the portage to Potowmack
may, and will, be reduced within the compass of a few miles,
to the great ease and convenience of the settlers in trans-
porting the produce of their lands to market. To which
may be added, that as patents have now actually passed the
seals for the several tracts here offered to be leased, settlers
on them may cultivate and enjoy the lands in peace and
safety, notwithstanding the unsettled counsels respecting a
new colony on the Ohio; and as no right money is to be
paid for these lands, and quitrent of two shillings sterling
a hundred, demandable some years hence only, it is highly
presumable that they will always be held upon a more de-
sirable footing than where both these are laid on with a
very heavy hand. And it may not be amiss further to ob-
serve, that if the scheme for establishing a new government
on the Ohio, in the manner talked of, should ever be
effected, these must be among the most valuable lands in
it, not only on account of the goodness of soil, and the
other advantages above enumerated, but from their con-
tiguity to the seat of government, which more than probable
will be fixed at the mouth of the Great Kanawha.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Western Lands. 63

These lands were patented by Lord Dunmore, Governor
of Virginia, as we know from Washington's own statement
to the Reverend John Witherspoon, in a letter dated March
lo, 1784/ in which he describes his western lands. From
inferential evidence we are inclined to think that Washing-
ton obtained these patents before any general issue of land
grants had been made to the officers and soldiers. We
know that Washington entered the claims of all those who
applied to him for assistance, and that too as early as 1771,*
but the general tenor of the Washington-Crawford Letters
from that date up to January, 1774, indicate that no official
grants had been issued.' In a letter to Crawford, dated
September 25, 1773, Washington says: "I would recom-
mend it to you to use dispatch, for, depend upon it, if it be
once known that the Governor will grant patents for these
lands, [below the Scioto,] the officers of Pennsylvania, Mary-
land, Carolina, etc., will flock there in shoals, and every
valuable spot will be taken up contiguous to the river, on
which the lands, imless it be where there are some peculiar
properties will always be most valuable."* It seems that
Washington was mistaken in regard to the Governor's inten-
tion, for, in a letter dated September 24, 1773, one day pre-
vious to the date of the above, Dunmore declared positively
to Washington, that he did not mean to grant any patents
on the western waters.' And yet, from the above advertise-
ment, it is clear that Washington himself already held
patents on western waters for upwards of twenty thousand
acres.* It will be noticed, however, that Washington does
not speak of these lands as patented under the proclamation

* Writings of Washington, XII., p. 264, or Washington-Crawford
Letters, p. 77.

* Writings of Washington, II., p. 367.

' Washington-Crawford Letters, e. g. 23, 25, 26, 29, 33, 35, 40.

*/Md., p. 33.

» WritiB^s of Washington, IL, p. 379.

* Some light on this fact may, perhaps, be seen in the Writings
of Washington, n., p. 367.

64 Washington's Interest in

of 1763, and yet, from allusions to them in his own letters,
we know that they were thus obtained as bounty lands,^ and
that Washington bought up the claims of his fellow-officers
to a considerable extent The following letter to Crawford
affords positive evidence on this point:

Mount Vernon, September 25, 1773.

"Dear Sir: — I have heard (the truth of which, if you
saw Lord Dunmore in his way to or from Pittsburgh, you
possibly are better acquainted with than I am) that his
Lordship will grant patents for lands lying below the Sdbto,
to the officers and soldiers who claim under the proclama-
tion of October, 1763. If so, I think no time should be lost
in having them surveyed, lest some new revolution should
happen in our political system. I have, therefore, by this
conveyance, written to Captain Bullitt, to desire he will have
ten thousand acres surveyed for me; five thousand of which
I am entitled to in my own right; the other five thousand,
by purchase from a captain and lieutenant

4c 4c3|eHc4:4:4c3|c3(:

Old David Wilper, who was an officer in our regiment,
and has been with Bullitt running out land for himself and
others, tells me that they have already discovered four salt
springs in that country; three of which Captain Thompson
has included within some surveys he has made; and the
other, an exceedingly valuable one, upon the River Ken-
tucky, is in some kind of dispute. I wish I could establish one
of my surveys there ; I would immediately turn it to an exten-
sive public benefit, as well as private advantage. However, as
four are already discovered, it is more than probable there
are many others; and if you could come at the knowledge
of them by means of the Indians, or otherwise, I would
join you in taking them up in the name or names of some
persons who have a right under the proclamation, and

* Washington-Crawford Letters, p. 78.

Western Lands. 65

whose right we can be sure of buying, as it seems there is

no other method of having the lands granted; but this

should be done with a good deal of circumspection and

caution, till patents are obtained."^

*********

Exactly how much land Washington succeeded in get-
ting patents for, it is difficult to say. From his letters to
John Witherspoon and Presley Neville we know that he
obtained, at least, 32,373 acres under the signature of Lord
Dunmore.' Of this amount, ten thousand acres were
doubtless secured about the beginning of the year 1774,
when Lord Dunmore began to grant patents officially. In
the preceding letter it will be noticed that Washington
speaks of his desire to have that quantity of land surveyed.
Reckoning the latter with the " upwards of twenty thousand
acres " which Washington advertised in the Maryland Jour-
nal and' Baltimore Advertiser, we can fairly account for the
above 32,373 acres. It is not improbable that Washington
owned at one time, even a larger amount of land than this,
which he speaks of in the above letter to Presley Neville as
still possessing in 1794.

In the historical library at the Johns Hopkins University
there may be seen an original plat of survey, executed,
probably, by Crawford, but, possibly, by Washington him-
self (for it contains some of his own handwriting), of
28,400 acres of land on the LzUle Kanawha river, patented
in the name of Captain Stobo's heirs, of Captain Vanbraam,
and of several other parties.' We have discovered allusions

* Writings of Washington, n., pp. 375-77, or Washington-Craw-
ford Letters, pp. 29-31.

'Writings of Washington, Xn., 264, 317, or Washington-CJraw-
ford Letters, pp. 77, 82.

• This map of survey, formerly the property of Reverdy Johnson,
Esq., was first recognized by President Gilman as containing some
of George Washington's own handwriting, and, through the cour-
tesy of Mr. Johnson, this map, now framed, graces the Map
Bureau at the University. Professor J. E. Hilgard, of the U. S.
Coast Survey, has called attention to the careful and accurate

66 Washington's Interest in

to these two officers in the Writings of Washington (11^
pp. 365, 368), and know that they entered their claims, along
with those of other friends and acquaintances of Washing-
ton, in the year 1771, but these two officers were out of the
country and, as Washington complained, had not advanced
their share of the expenses attending the surveys. It is
highly probable that Captain Stobo (or his heirs) and Cap-
tain Vanbraam became tired of waiting for patents and sold
out their claims to Washington, as did several gentlemen
in this country. But we have more positive evidence that
Washington owned property at the mouth of the Little
Kanawha, And, in this connection. Lord Dunmore's in-
terest in western lands must be slightly exposed. There is
some obscurity attached to the royal governor's conduct
and prudent delay in granting patents for the bounty lands,
but there is no reason for suspecting Washington, for we
know that he did his utmost to prevail upon Dunmore and
his predecessor. Lord Botetourt, to hasten the grants.*

In the spring of 1773, we find Dunmore making arrange-
ments with Washington for a trip over the mountains. The
latter expresses his willingness to accompany the governor,
about the first of July, " through any and every part of the
western country" which Dunmore might think proper to
visit Crawford is recommended as a guide, because of
" his superior knowledge of the country." Washington was

method of protraction employed In this plat of survey. It will be
noticed that the course of the river Is Indicated by the straight
lines of survey and not by curves. The words " Plat of the Survey
of the Little Kanawha, 28,400 acres, made in 1773," are written
on the back of the original map, but have been photographed and
inserted In the fac-aimile for the sake of showing the whole.

* See Letters to Lord Botetourt, the Earl of Dunmore, and George
Mercer, 1770-1. Writings of Washington, II., pp. 355, 359, 365, 378.
This correspondence ought to be published In every collection of
documents relating to Western Lands. It would not be amiss In
the Appendix to Butterfleld's next edition, for these letters set
Washington's character in a very dear light as regards honorable
intentions by his fellow-offlcers.

Western Lands. 67

prevented, however, by a family affliction,* from carrying
out the project, but Dunmore went without him, and, very
naturally, visited Crawford in his western home, " the occa-
sion being turned to profitable account," Butterfield thinks,
"by both parties: by the Earl, in getting reliable informa-
tion of desirable lands; by Crawford, in obtaining promises
for patents for such as he had sought out and surveyed."
These promises on Dunmore's part related to lands af the
mouth of the Little Kanawha. This is evident from two
passages in Crawford's letters to Washington: "In my last
letter to you I wrote you that Lord Dunmore had prom-
ised me that in case the new government did not take place
before he got home, he would patent these lands for me if
I would send him the draft of the land I surveyed on the
mouth of the Little Kanawha."' This passage is ambigu-
ous, but it settles one point: the proposed draft of land was
at the mouth of the Little Kanawha. The second passage,
which is from a subsequent letter, clears up the ambiguity:
*^ Lord Dunmore promised me most faithfully, that when I
sent him the draft of land on the Little Kanawha that he
would patent \tfor me; and in my letter to you I mentioned
it, but have not heard anything from you relating to it." '

Now comes Washington's relation to the lands at the
mouth of the Little Kanawha. The passage from Craw-
ford, which was quoted . first, is in immediate /i connection
with the following offer: " Now, as my claim as an officer
cannot include the whole, if you will join as much of your
officer's claim as will take all of the survey, you may de-
pend I will make any equal division you may propose. I
told Lord Dunmore the true state of the matter." The pas-
sage which was quoted in the second place, is immediately
preceded by this statement: "He [Doctor Connolly, Lord

* The death of Miss Custis, daughter of Mrs. Washington by her
former marriage. See Sparks' Life and Writings of Washington,
II., p. 378.

* Washington-Crawford Letters, p. 35.

• ma., p. 40.

68 Wdshington^s Interest in

Dunmore's agent] further told me that you had applied for
my land as an officer, and could not obtain it without a cer-
tificate, or my being present; which puts me at a loss, in
some measure, how to take it, especially as you have not
written on that head/' In this and in the succeeding sen-
tence, above quoted, Crawford manifests some anxiety in
regard to securing patents on the lands at the mouth of the
Little Kanawha, having heard nothing from Washington
on that score.

And now comes the conclusion of the matter, as far as
our evidence goes. In a letter to Washington, dated Sep-
tember 20, 1774, and, therefore, after patents had been issued
in sufficient quantities to cover all purposes of speculation,
Crawford says: ** I have, I believe, as much land lying on
the Little Kanawha as will make up the quantity you want,
that I intended to lay your grants on; 6ut if you want it,
you can have it, and I will try to get other land for that
purpose " [up river, as he proceeds to describe]. The sense
of this passage is somewhat ambiguous, but, in the light of
the foregoing facts, we think it must be interpreted as fol-
lows: Crawford had surveyed a large tract of land at the
mouth of the Little Kanawha; he had offered to share it with
Washington; the latter had applied for Crawford's patent
and had secured certain grants in which he and Crawford
were to have a joint interest, which grants Crawford had
intended to lay upon the lands at the mouth of the Little
Kanawha; but Washington, for some reason, desired to
make up a quantity of land for himself, in one tract, and
Crawford tells him that if he wants the whole tract at the
mouth of the Little Kanawha, he can have it, and he him-
self will lay warrants, in which he and Washington have a
joint interest, upon a certain parcel of land "fifteen or
twenty miles up that river, on the lower side, and [which]
is already run out in tracts of about three thousand and
some odd acres; others about twenty-five hundred acres; all
well marked and bounded." This interpretation is borne
out by the fact that Crawford's name does not appear in

Western La/nda. 69

the list of patentees, which was written by Washington
himself on the above-mentioned map of survey, although
the tract at the mouth of the Little Kanawha was certainly
the one which Crawford originally surveyed for himself and
which he desired to have Washington join him in securing.
It is possible that the words " Former survey," which are to
be seen in the preceding plat, have reference to Crawford's
first survey of the locality, a draft of which he sent to Lord
Dunmore. It is highly probable that Washington bought
up the claims of all the parties, in whose names the patents
for the land at the mouth of the Little Kanawha were
drawn, as the list itself shows, and secured the entire 28400
acres for himself in one tract. Washington's practice of
attaching purchased warrants to Crawford's land surveys is
made evident by the following passage from one of Craw-
ford's letters, dated March 6, 1775: " Inclosed you have two
plats which you must fix warrants to yourself and the dates
also of the warrants."^ Whether Crawford had obtained
from Lord Dunmore, before that date, any regular com-
mission as siureyor for a district on the Ohio, is not clear.
We know, however, that Lord Dunmore promised to serve
Crawford in that way if it should be in his power,'' and
Crawford wrote to Washington, December 29, 1773, con-
cerning this very matter: " If you can do any thing for me,
pray do; as it will then be in my power to be of iservice to
you, and myself too, and our friends."" A few months pre-
vious to the above date, Washington had procured for
Crawford the position of surveyor for the Ohio Land Com-
pany.* Crawford seems to have been a very enterprising
character. If he could have managed the patenting of the

■ • ■ I r

* Wastiington-Crawf ord Letters, p. 59. As Washington did not
go west in 1773, it is probable that he affixed the names of Stobo,
Vanbraam, and the rest, to a plot that Crawford had sent him.

* JTftitf., pp. 39, 40.
» lUd., p. 39.

* Ibid., p. 33.

70 Wdshington^s Interest in

bounty lands, he would doubtless have served himself^
Washington, and "our friends'* far more eflEectually than
did Lord Dunmore.* In a letter to Washington dated
November 12, 1773, Crawford hints at taking up the entire
t^vo hundred thousand acres: "I wrote you," he says, "re-
lating to the upper survey on the Great Kanawha. I think
you have not apprehended me in what I wanted. TAere is
the full quantity of land of two hundred thousand acres, and
six hufidred over and above** Butterfield says that Craw-
ford's meaning at this point is not clear. At least the allu-
sion to the two hundred thousand acres must have con-
veyed a tolerably clear concept to the speculative mind of
Washington.

If Washington really owned at one time the above 28,40a
acres in addition to the 32,373 acres which we have pre-
viously accounted for, this amount, together with his io,ooa
acres of unpatented surveys, would make a sum total of
70,773 acres of western land, which he aspired to control.
Considering the fact that his own claim as an officer was for
but five thousand acres and that only two hundred thousand
could possibly be granted to the officers and soldiers, it
would certainly appear as though Washington meant to
secure the lion's share, which, considering the circumstances

* There are strong reasons for believing that Lord Dunmore and
his Council were materially interested not only in restraining the
soldiers^ grants, but also in furthering the claims of certain land
companies in which they had stock. Washington ascribes the back-
wardness of this Honorable Board, in recognii^ng the soldiers'
claims, to " other causes " than mere lukewammess. (See Writ-
ings of Washington, II., p. 365.) It is stated, as a notorious fact,
in the famous Virginia Remonstrance (see Hening, Virginia Stat-
utes at Large, X., p. 558,) that Lord Dunmore was in league with
^^men of great influence in some of the neighboring states," for the
purpose of securing, undercover of purchase from the Indians, large
tracts of country between the Ohio and Mississippi. By the allu-
sion to " neighboring states," Maryland is aimed at, for Virginians
usually ascribe Maryland's zeal for the public good to the inter-
ested motives of individuals. The poUcy of all the smaller states
and the sturdy persistence, as well as the united and thoroughly
consistent action of Maryland, are not to be explained from the
standpoint of individual interest.

Western Lands. 71

and Lord Dunmore's conduct, no one could truly begrudge
that enterprising man who prevented Dunmore and his
colleagues from buying up all the claims. Washington
needs no defence after his own manly and straightforward
statements to his friend George Mercer, concerning his
efforts to secure the bounty lands for the officers and sol-
diers. "The unequal interest and dispersed situation of
the claimants," he says, " make a regular cooperation diffi-
cult. An undertaking of this kind cannot be conducted
without a good deal of expense and trouble; and the doubt
of obtaining the lands, after the utmost efforts, is such as to
discourage the larger part of the claimants from lending
assistance, whilst a few are obliged to wade through every
difficulty, or relinquish every hope, . . . What induce-
ments have men to explore uninhabited wilds, but the pros-
pect of getting good lands? Would any man waste his
time, expose his fortune, nay, his life, in such a search, if he
has to share the good and bad with those that come after
him? Surely not."*

It is necessary to add, in closing this essay on Washing-
ton's land speculations, that the Father of his Country did
not realize as much as he had expected from his invest-
ment of time and money. His experience with western land
seems to have been like that of many speculators of our
own day. In a letter to Presley Neville, in 1794, he says:
" From a long experience of many years, I have foimd dis-
tant property in land more pregnant of perplexities than
profit. I have therefore resolved to sell all I hold on the
western waters, if I can obtain the prices which I conceive
their quality, their situation, and other advantages, would
authorize me to expect." In this letter, Washington esti-
mates some of his land at six dollars per acre, and other
portions at four dollars. He says he once sold his 32,373
acres, on the Great Kanawha and Ohio rivers, for sixty-five
thousand French crowns to "a French gentleman, who
was very competent to the payment at the time the contract

* Writings of Washington, II., pp. 365, 366.

72 Washington's Interest in

was made; but, getting a little embarrassed in his finances
by the revolution in his coimtry, by mutual agreement the
bargain was cancelled." Washington declares also that he
has lately been negotiating for the sale of his western prop-
erty at three and one-third dollars per acre/ But the lands
on the Great Kanawha alone were afterwards sold, condi-
tionally, for two hundred thousand dollars, as we learn from
the schedule of property appended to Washington's will.
" If the terms of that sale are not complied with," Washing-
ton adds in a foot-note, " they [these lands] will command
considerable more." A good idea of the vast extent of
Washington's investments in land may be obtained from
an examination of this schedule,' the details of which we
have somewhat abridged. The schedule does not include
the Mount Vernon estates, which embrace six thousand
acres, or the tracts on Little Hunting Creek and Four Mile
Run, which, together, formed three thousand two hundred
and twenty-seven acres; this home property^i comprising in
all 9,227 acres, was reserved in family estates for Busbrod
Washington and others. The estimates of the value of the
following parcels were made by Washington himself, in
1799, and his heirs were directed to sell oflE this larger por-
tion of his landed property.

Lands in Virginia.

Acres. Value.

Loudoun County, Difficult Run, . . . 300 $6,666

Loudoun and Fauquier, 3,366 31,890

Berkeley, . . 22,236 44,720

Frederic, ........'... 571 11,420

Hampshire, 240 3,600

Gloucester, 400 3,600

Nansemond, near Suffolk, 373 2,984

Great Dismal Swamp, dividend thereof, . [?] 20,000

Carried forward, .... 27486 $124,880

^ Writings of Washington, Xn., 318, or Appendix to the Wash-
ington-Crawford Letters, p. 82.
» Writings of Washington, I., pp. 581-2.

Western Lands. 73

Acres. Value.

Brought forward, . . 27,486 $124,880

Lands on the Ohio.

Round Bottom, 587

Little Kanawha, 2,314

Sixteen miles lower down, .... 2,448

Opposite Big Bent, 4j395 *

9,744 $97,440

Lands on the Great Kanawha.

Near the mouth, west, 10,990

East side, above, 7,276

Mouth of Cole River, 2,000

Opposite thereto, 2,950

Burning Spring, 125

23,341 $200,000

Lands in Maryland.

Charles County, 600 $3,600

Montgomery, 519 6,228

1,119 $9,828

Lands in Pennsylvania.
Great Meadows, 234 $1,404

Lands in New York.
Mohawk River, 1,000 $6,000

Lands in Northwest Territory.
On Little Miami, 3,051 $15,255

Carried forward, . . 65,975 $454>8o7

74 Washington's Interest in

Acres. Value.

Brought forward, . . 65,975 $454,8o7

Lands in Kentucky.
Rough Creek, 5,000 $10,000

Total, . . . 70,975 $464,807

Lots in Washington,
" " Alexandria,
u it Winchester,

19,132

4,000

400

$488,339

Thus, — ^to say nothing of the Mount Vernon estates, of
the lands that Washington had previously disposed oi in
the Mohawk valley,* and elsewhere, of the 28400 acres at
the mouth of the Little Kanawha,' of the 10,000 acres of
unpatented surveys lost by the Revolution, or of Washing-
ton's share in the Great Dismal Swamp, — ^thus we see, that
he actually owned in 1799, over 70,000 acres of land, which
he had originally secured for speculative purposes alone.

These facts concerning the vast extent of Washington's
landed interests are now for the first time brought into sys-
tematic shape and historic connection. They reveal the
practical and intensely American spirit of the Father of our
Country. It does not detract from Washington's true great-
ness for the world to know this material side of his char-
acter. On the contrary, it only exalts that heroic spirit
which, in disaster, never faltered, and which, in success,
would have no reward. To be sure, it brings Washington
nearer the level of humanity to know that he was endowed
with the passions common to men, and that he was as dili-

^ Writings of Washington, I., p. 584.

* The claims of Stobo and Vanbraam were really purchased by
Washington's London agent, as we have ascertained from a note
in Irving's Life of Washington, I., p. 369.

Western Lamds. 75

gent in business as he was fervent in his devotion to
country. It may seem less ideal to view Washington as a
man rather than as a hero or statesman, but it is the duty of
history to deal with great men as they actually are. Man
lives for himself, as well as in and for the State, and the dis-
tinction of individual from patriotic motives is one of the
necessary tasks of historical investigation.

Public spirit and private enterprise are the leading traits
of the American people. This dualism of character consti-
tutes the healthful vigor of our state life. The coexistence,
in George Washington of the most earnest zeal for the pub-
lic good and of the most active spirit of business enterprise,
is but the prototype of the life of our nation, for, as a dis-
tinguished jurist and political philosopher has well said, der
Staat 1ST DER Mann im Grossen (I'etat c'estVhomme)} A
proper balance between public and individual interests is
the great problem of self-government, but public good, and
not the individual will, must be the determining power in
this adjustment. When the commonwealth rises paramount
and supreme over such selfish strivings as those recorded
in the history of the land controversy, then does the true
soul of State assert its sovereign will. Necessity is the su-
preme law of nations as well as of men, and it springs,
sometimes, full-armed into being from the most material of
human interests. The real essence of Political Sovereignty
we cannot explain. As Shakespeare says:

" There is a mystery

in the soul of State,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressmre to."*

Political Sovereignty has its prototype, however, in the
public spirit and patriotism of the individual. Who can

^ J. C. Bluntschli : Lehre vom modernen Staat, L, p. 25. Bluntschli
was professor of public and international law at Heidelberg and

President de VInstitut de Droit International,
* Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Scene 3.

76 WdshinffUm^a Interest in

account for the generous nature of American citizens, or
for that heroic spirit which sometimes creates whole armies
of men, who are ready to sacrifice all their individual inter-
ests for some great cause? Americans are said to be die
most practical people in the world, and they probably are.
We even call the State "a machine," although it may be
doubted if Americans really believe this political doctrine.
Americans are far too practical to ofler up their lives for the
sake of a machine, or to drag a political juggernaut for die
privilege of being crushed by its wheels. Public good,
however, takes precedence of individual happiness. The
State is surely as noble as the patriotism which leads men
to die for it. Although interest is, without doubt, the ma-
terial basis of political society, as it is of human action, yet
there is an interest in Man as well as in the State, which
transcends self-interest and all personal or material aims.
It seldom finds perfect expression, either in Man or in the
State, but it is the glory of human nature that self-interest
sometimes does find a sovereign complement in a spirit of
self-sacrifice for the common good and for the welfare of
others. Such was the self-sacrificing devotion of George
Washington, when, at the outbreak of the Revolution, he
received from Congress the commission of Commander-in-
Chief of the American forces, and, standing in his place as
member of the House from Virginia, uttered those memor-
able words : " I will enter upon the momentous duty, and
exert every power I possess for the support of the glorious
cause. But lest some tmlucky event should happen, unfav-
orable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by
every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with
the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the
command I am honored with. As to pay, sir, I beg leave to
assure the Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration
could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment,
at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not
wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact

Western Lands. 77

account of my expenses. These I doubt not they will dis-
charge, and that is all I desire."^

Washington's patriotism in the defense of American lib-
erty needs no eulogy. On the twenty-third of December,
1783, he tendered his resignation to Congress, then in ses-
sion at Annapolis, in a speech which has an abiding fame,
as that of the American Cincinnatus. These are his con-
cluding words: "Having now finished the work assigned
me, I retire from the great theater of action, and bidding an
affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders
I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take
leave of all the employments of public life."*

* Writings of Washington, HE., p. 1. Compare with letter to Mrs.
Washington, m., pp. 2-3.
» Writings of Washington, vni., p. 505.

i '

i!

WASHINGTON'S INTEREST

IN THE

POTOMAC COMPANY.

Washington's activity in the service of his country did
not end in 1783. We refer not to his subsequent career as
President of the United States, after the adoption of the
present Constitution in 1788, but to his public spirit in
opening up the Great West to trade and commerce, and in
laying the basis for our nation's policy in the matter of in-
ternal improvements. This is a chapter in Washington's
life that is not so well known. Materials for this subject
were first collected by Mr. Andrew Stewart, member of
Congress from Pennsylvania, in a Report on the " Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal," in 1826.* Some, but not all, of the
Washington documents pertaining to this matter were re-
published in Sparks' edition of the Writings of Washing-
ton. Mr. John Pickell, formerly one of the Directors of
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, has worked
over this material and has compiled fresh facts from official
sources in a valuable monograph called, "A new chapter in
the Early Life of Washington in connection with the nar-
rative history of the Potomac Company."*

^ Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives, First
Session, Nineteenth CJongress. Report No. 228.

•New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1856.

80 Washington's Interest in the

The connection of George Washington with schemes for
opening communication between the Atlantic States and the
Great West was broken by the Revolution. There is a re-
port in George Washington's handwriting, dated as far back
as 1754, stating the difficulties to be overcome in rendering
the Potomac navigable/ This report was made by Wash-
ington on his return from a trip across the Alleghanies, as
messenger from Governor Dinwiddie to the commandant
of the French forces on the Ohio. Washington went up
the Potomac to Will's creek,' or Fort Cumberland, and over
the Alleghanies by the route which was afterwards taken by
the unfortunate Braddock, in his expedition against the
French and Indians, and which became known as Brad-
dock's Road.' A route ,was afterwjards mapped out by
Washington, from Cumberland over the mountains to the
Youghiogheny river, which was destined to become the
great avenue of travel and western migration. The con-
struction of the Cumberland turnpike was a national work.*
Indeed, it was called the National Road, and it must be
regarded as one of the direct results of that policy of inter-
nal improvement, which, as we shall see, originated with
Washington. The historic outcome of the Cumberland
turnpike is, however, the Connellsville line, from Pittsburgh
tp Cumberland, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

There must be some germ for historical as for natural
evolution. The Potomac scheme of George Washington
contained in embryo about all that the present generation

^ Stewart's Report, p. 1. Sparks has not reprinted this document

* Washington's Journal of a tour over the All^;hany Mountains.
Writings, n., p. 432.

' This route was originally discovered by Indians in the employ
of Virginia and Pennsylvania traders. It was first opened by the
Ohio Company in 1753. See Writings of Washington, II., p. 302.

* The Cumberland Road was completed to Wheeling in 1820, at a
cost of $1,700,000. Hildreth, History of the United States, (1789-
1821) in., p. 699.

Potomac Company. 81

could reasonably demand. In a letter to Thomas Johnson,^
the first state-governor of Maryland, dated July 20, 1770,
Washington suggests that the project of opening up the
Potomac be "recommended to public notice upon a more
enlarged plan " [i. e., passage to Cumberland and connec-
tion, by portage, with Ohio waters] " as a means of becom-
ing the channel of conveyance of the extensive and valuable
trade of a rising empire!

na

^ Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, was the man who, in 1775, nomi-
nated George Washington for the oflSce of Commander-in-Chief of
the American army. See Writings of Washington, HE., p. 480. He
was one of the committee of correspondence for Maryland, in 1775,
Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Charles Carroll, bar-
rister, and William Paca, being among his colleagues. He was
delegate to Congress from 1775-77, and Governor of Maryland
from 1777-79. Lanman, in his Biographical Annals of the Civil
Government of the United States, is surely in error in saying that
Johnson left Congress to raise a small army with which, as com-
mander, he went to the assistance of Washington in New England,
Governor Johnson called out extra militia in 1777 " to defend our
liberties," but Washington left New England and retreated from
Long Island in 1776, the Maryland Line covering the retreat, after
having saved Putnam's troops from destruction by charging six
times, with the bayonet, upon the left wing of the British army
and by the sacrifice of five devoted companies, of whom Washing-
ton said: " My God! what brave men must I this day lose I" Colo-
nel Smallwood was the commander of these brave young men from
Baltimore, although he did not take part in the engagement, being
** absent on duty in New York." (Bancroft, IX., p. 88.) But
though Governor Johnson did not go to Washington's reUef , these
two were ever the warmest friends, and, after the Revolution,
often visited each other, now at Rose Hill, near Frederick, and
now at Mount Vernon. Johnson was Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States from 1791-93, and, when Jefferson left the
Cabinet, was invited by Washington to become Secretary of State,
but declined. John Adams was once asked how it was that so
many Southern men took part in the Revolution, and he replied,
that, if it had not been for such men as Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Chase, and Thomas Johnson, there
never would have been any Revolution. See Lanman's Biogra-
phical Annals, ** Thomas Johnson."

' This letter to Thomas Johnson of Maryland is not to be found
in Sparks* coUection of the Writings of Washington, but in Stew-
art's Report, pp. 27-29. The idea advanced is of colossal import
and only the present generation can realize its full significance.

82 Wdshington^a Interest in the

Here is the bahnbrechende Idee^ whose resistless strength
hai. opened the vistas of our inland commerce, and whose
colossal proportions are now revealed, not only in the Bal-
timore and Ohio, which is the direct historic outgrowth of
the Potomac scheme, but in the whole system of communi-
cation between East and West. It is a surprising fact that
George Washington not only first mapped and recom-
mended that line, which is now in very truth, " becoming
the channel of, conveyance of the extensive and valuable
trade of a rising empire," but was also the first to predict
the commercial success of that route through the Mohawk
valley which was afterwards taken by the Erie Canal- and
the New York Central Railroad. He not only predicted
the accomplishment of this line of communication with the
West, but he actually explored it in person. Before he had
repaired to Annapolis to resign his commission, and even
before the terms of peace with Great Britain had been defi-
nitely arranged, Washington was again turning his atten-
tion to the scheme of opening up the West to trade and
commerce. He left his camp at Newburg on the Hudson,
and made, on horseback, an exploring expedition of nearly
three weeks' duration through the State of New York. In
a letter to the Marquis of Chastelleux, he gives an account
of his trip : " I have lately made," he says, " a tour through
the lakes George and Champlain, as far as Crown Point:
then returning to Schenectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk
river to Fort Schuyler; crossed over Wood creek which
empties into the Oneida lake, and affords the water com-
munication with Ontario. I then traversed the country to
the head of the Eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and
viewed the lake Otswego, and the portage between that lake
and the Mohawk river, at Conajoharie. Prompted by these
actual observations, I could not help taking a more con-
templative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation
of these United States, and could not but be struck with th6
immense diffusion and importance of it; and with the good-
ness of that Providence which has dealt his favors to us

Potomac Company. 88

with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wis-
dom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented
until I have explored the Western country, and traversed
those lines (or a great part of them) which have given
bounds to a new empire."^

After resigning his commission at Annapolis, Washing-
ton returned to Mount Vernon, where he arrived the day
before Christmas, 1783. '^The scene is at last closed," he
writes, four days afterwards, to Governor Clinton, of New
York, who had accompanied Washington in his recent ex-
plorations; "I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I
hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the
affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic
virtues."* But how impossible it was for Washington to
continue a mere private citizen, on the banks of the Poto-
mac, solacing himself with the tranquil enjoyments of home
life, as he had promised himself and his friends, is evinced
by a letter to Thomas Jefferson, the following spring, in
which he returns with fresh zeal to the project of national
improvement. " How far, upon mature consideration," he
says, "I may depart from the resolution I had formed, of
living perfectly at my ease, exempt from every kind of re-
sponsibility, it is more than I can at present absolutely de-
termine. . . . The trouble, if my situation at the time
would permit me, to engage in a work of this sort [the
Potomac scheme] would be set at nought; and the immense
advantages, which this country would derive from the
measure, would be no small stimulus to the undertaking,
if that undertaking could be made to comport with those
ideas, and that line of conduct, with which I meant to ^lide
gently down the current of life, and it did not interfere with
any other plan I might have in contemplation."' The con-
nection of this revival of public spirit with those recent ex-

* Stewart's Report, p. 2. Marshall's Life of Washington, V., p. 9.

* Writings of Washington, IX., p. 1.
» Writings of Washington, IX., p. 32.

84 Washington's Interest in the

ploradons, with Governor Clinton/ in the Mohawk valley
is shown by this allusion: ^1 know the Yorkers will delay
no time to remove every obstacle in the way of the other
communication, so soon as the posts of Oswego and Ni-
agara are surrendered." Washington requests, moreover,
that Jefferson should confer with Thomas Johnson, for-
merly governor of Maryland, on this subject, as he had
been a warm promoter of the Potomac scheme before the
Revolution broke out

In the light of these suggestions, we are not surprised to
find Washington soon actively engaged in furthering the
enterprise for which, ten years before, he had enlisted the
legislative sympathies of Virginia and had secured the co-
operation of Mr. Johnson of Maryland. Washington
started on another tour to the west on the first of Sep-
tember, 1784, and was absent from home a little more than
a month. His tour westward was less extensive than he
had contemplated,' for the Indians were still dangerous, but
he managed to travel six hundred and eighty miles on
horseback, and took careful notes in his journal of all con-
versations with the settlers and other persons who were
acquainted with the facilities for communication between
east and west There is an interesting fac-simile, in Stew-
art's Report, of a map of the country between the waters of
the Potomac and those of the Youghiogheny and Monon-

* It is highly characteristic of these two public spirits that they
took occasion to secure together 6,000 acres of land on the Mohawk
river (Montgomery County). See Washington's will, Sparks,!., p.
584, note (o). From a letter to Clinton of November 25, 1784, it
would appear that the two friends had talked of buying up Sara-
toga Springs. Writings of Washington, IX., p. 70.

' Washin^on had intended to make a trip down the Ohio as far
as the Great Kanawha, for the purpose of inspecting his lands in
that region. We must not lose sight of Washington's business
nature. " I am not going to explore the country, nor am I in
search of fresh lands, but to secure what I have," writes he to Dr.
Craik, July 10, 1784. But in this statement, Washington was not
quite just towards his own motives, as events show.

Potomac Company. 85

gahela rivers, as sketched by Washington in 1784. A new
route of portage, which he designates from Cumberland to
the Youghiogheny, does not deviate materially from the
line afterward taken by the Great National Road. Wash-
ington employed men at his own expense to explore the
different ways of communication, and from their detailed
reports^ and his own experience, he arrived at the conclu-
sion that there were two practicable routes' to the Ohio
valley, the one over the mountains from Cumberland, TJta
Wills Creek and Pennsylvania, which is now the Connells-
ville branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or the so-
called Pittsburgh, Washington, and Baltimore Railroad, and
the other through the mountains from Cumberland, along the
upper Potomac, which is now the grand route to Wheeling
and Parkersburg, from which points the Baltimore and Ohio
stretches its Briarean arms to the Lakes and to the Father
of Waters.

But we seek the beginning of all this. The first results
of Washington's tour of exploration appear in a letter to
Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, dated the tenth
of October, 1784, which we must regard as a fresh Aus-
gangspunkt and the real historic beginning of the Potomac
enterprise. With prophetic instinct, Washington seemed to
realize the greatness of his scheme. "I shall take the lib-
erty, now, my dear Sir, to suggest a matter, which would
(if I am not too short-sighted a politician) mark your ad-
ministration as an important era in the annals of this coun-
try if it should be recommended by you and adopted by the
Assembly."* Washington then proceeds to support by facts
what had long been his " decided opinion," that the shortest

* Two of these reports are reprinted by Stewart and are not to
be found In Sparks* collection of Letters to Washington.

' See report of the Maryland and Virginia commissioners in re-
gard to extending the navigation of the Potomac and eonstmctlng
two roads to the west, one through Pennsylvania, the other " whol-
ly through Virginia and Maryland," to Cheat river. Pickell, p. 45.
Compare Washington's letter to Madison, December 28, 1784.
Stewart's Report, p. 35.

■ Writings of Washington, IX., p. 58.

86 Washington's Interest in the

and least expensive route to the West was by way of tjie
Potomac. He takes Detroit as the supposed point of de-
parture of trade from the northwest territory, and shows
that the Potomac connection is nearer tide-water than the
St Lawrence, by one hundred and sixty-eight miles, and
nearer the West than the Hudson at Albany, by one hun-
dred and seventy-six miles. Washington's calculation of
distances, by way of Fort Pitt, a list which was appended to
the above letter, is not reprinted in Sparks, but was copied
by Stewart from the original manuscript, loaned him by
General Mason of Virginia.*

"Distances from Detroit to the several Atlantic sea
ports.

From Detroit f by the route through Fort Pitt and Fort

Cumberland: —

Miles.

To Alexandria, (or Washington City,) . . . 607

" Richmond, 840

^' Philadelphia, 745

" Albany, 943

« New York, 1103"*

Washington pbints out to Governor Harrison the pros-
pect of Pennsylvania's opening up communication with
Pittsburgh by way of the Susquehanna and Toby's Creek
and then cutting a canal between the former and the Schuyl-
kill river. He says "a people who are possessed of the
spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their ad-
vantages, may achieve almost anything." That New York
also would join in " smoothing the roads and paving the
ways for the trade of the western world, ^^ Washington
clearly foresaw. On this point he says, "no person, who

* See Stewart's Report, p. 2, or Plckell's History of the Potomac
Company, p. 174.

* Pittsburgli, the head of steamboat navigatioii on the Ohio, i»
now actually distant from New York by French Creek, Lake Erie,
and the Erie Canal, 784 miles. From Pittsburgh to Washington^
by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, it is 346 miles.

Potomac Company. 87

knows the temper, genius, and policy of those people as well
as I do, can harbor the smallest doubt."^ Washington's
language seems almost prophetic.

The political importance of establishing commercial con-
nections with the West seems to have impressed Washing-
ton most profoundly. He reminds Harrison how "the
flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other
powers, and formidable ones too " [Spain and England].
He dwells upon the necessity of cementing all parts of the
Union together by common interests. The Western States
stand now, he says, " upon a pivot." A touch would turn
them. The stream of commerce would glide gently down
the Mississippi unless shorter and easier channels were
made for it to Atlantic seaports. Washington urges that
commissioners be appointed to make a careful survey of the
Potomac and James rivers to their respective sources and
that a complete map of the whole country intervening be-
tween the seaboard, the Ohio waters, and the Great Lakes,
be presented to the public. " These things being done," he
says, "I shall be mistaken if prejudice does not yield to
facts, jealousy to candor, and, finally, if reason and nature,
thus aided, do not dictate what is right and proper to be
done."

* While advocating the Potomac route to a citizen of Maryland,
Washington declares with patriotic fervor: " I am not for discour-
aging the exertions of any state to draw the commerce of the west-
em country to its seaports. Tlie more communications we open
to it, the closer we bind that rising world (for indeed it may be so-
called) to our interests, and the greater strength we shall acquire
by it." (See Marshall's Life of Washington, V., p. 12.)

To a member of Congress he expresses himself even more posi-
tively: "For my own part, I wish sincerely every door of that
country [the West] may be set wide open, and the conunerclal
intercourse with it rendered as free and easy as possibla This, in
my opinion, is the &e«f, if not the only cement, that can bind these
People to us for any length of time; and we shall be deficient in
foresight and wisdom if we neglect the means of effecting it."

Stewart's Report, p. 7. Neither of these passages are to be found
in Spariis' collection of the Writings of Washington.

88 Washington's Interest in the

This letter to Governor Harrison was brought before the
legislature of Virginia, and public spirit in favor of the Po-
tomac scheme was soon awakened. It became necessary to
secure the cooperation of Maryland and a perfect harmony
of legislative action on the part of both States in chartering
the proposed company. A deputation, consisting of Gen-
eral Washington, General Gates, and Colonel Blackburn,
was accordingly sent by the Virginia legislature to Annapo-
lis, in December, 1784, where they were received with dis-
tinguished honors. A delegation was straightway appointed
by the legislature of Maryland to confer with the gentlemen
from Virginia. Among the Maryland commissioners was
Charles Carroll of CarroUton, the man who was destined to
see the historic development of that " enlarged plan " which
Washington had so early recommended to Thomas Johnson
of Maryland, for, on the fourth of July, 1828, this Nestor of
American patriots, who had outlived all other signers of
the Declaration of Independence, laid the first foundation
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.*

It is not our purpose to write another history of the Poto-
mac Company. That work has been done by Pickell. Our
object is to show the public spirit and pioneer influence of
George Washington in opening a channel of trade between
the East and West. His suggestions were adopted by the
commissioners; his views were embodied in their report to
the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, and this report
was the basis of all subsequent legislative action in regard
to the proposed enterprise. Washington, moreover, intro-
duced his plan to the notice of Congress, on account of its

^Charles Carroll of Carrollton was over ninety years old at the
time the Baltimore and Ohio was founded. His speech to a friend
on that occasion was not unworthy the beginning of railroad enter-
prise in this country: " I consider this among the most important
acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, if even it be second to that." History and Description
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. By a Citizen of Baltimore.
1853, p. 20.

Potomac Company. 89

political bearing in turning the channels of trade away from
Spanish and British influence. " Extend the navigation of
the eastern waters," he writes to a member of Congress;
" communicate them as near as possible with those which
run westward— -open to the Ohio; open also such as extend
from the Ohio towards Lake Erie, and we shall not only
draw the produce of the western settlers, but the peltry and
fur-trade of the lakes to our ports; thus adding an immense
increase to our exports, and binding these people to us by
a chain which can never be broken!*^ This was the first
suggestion to Congress of that policy of internal improve-
ments, which, from the beginning of the National Road, in
1806, was followed up with considerable zeal, until General
Jackson vetoed the Maysville Road, in 1829. The policy
of Exploration and National Surveys, which our government
still adheres to, was likewise suggested by George Washing-
ton, and that, too, in connection with the Potomac scheme.*
The public spirit of George Washington is strikingly
manifest, not only in these pioneer eflforts for the good of
our nation, but in a project which is so nearly connected
with the Potomac enterprise that we must not pass it by,
although the limits of this paper will not allow us a special
treatment of the subject. Before the organization of the
Potomac Company, of which George Washington became
first president in 1785, continuing in office until 1788,' when
he was elected President of the United States, the legislature
of Virginia passed an act vesting George Washington with
one hundred and fifty shares in the proposed companies for

* Marshall's Life of Washington, V., p. 14. It is a mistake to sup-
pose that Washington did not appreciate the importance of the
Mississippi to the United States, and the tme interests of the comi-
try in obtaining a free navigation of that river. He saw that this
would come in good time. See Letter to R. H. Lee, July 19, 1787.

■ See letter to Richard Henry Lee, President of Congress, 1784.
Writings of Washington, IX., p. 80.

■The second president of the Potomac Company was Thomas
Johnson of Maryland, the man to whom Washington addressed
his letter of July 20, 1770, suggesting '* an enlarged plan " for the
Potomac enterprise.

90 Wdshhigton^s Interest in the

extending the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers.
This was done by the State of Virginia, through its repre-
sentatives, who desired to testify "their sense of the un-
exampled merits of George Washington," and to make those
great works for national improvement which were to be
monuments to his glory at the same time " monuments also
of the gratitude of his country."

Washington, although deeply sensible of the honor his
countrymen had shown him, felt himself much embarrassed
by this substantial token of their good will and affection,
and consequently declined their offer, for he wished, he said,
to have his future actions " free and independent as the air.'*
In a letter to Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia,
Washington, after a graceful tribute to the generosity of his
native State, thus declares his position: " Not content with
the bare consciousness of my having, in all this navigation
business, acted upon the clearest conviction of the political
importance of the measure, I would wish that every indi-
vidual who may hear that it was a favorite plan of mine, may
know also that I had no other motive for promoting it, than
the advantage of which I conceived it would be productive
to the Union, and to this State in particular, by cementing
the eastern and western territory together." . . .

" How would this matter be viewed, then, by the eye of
the world, and what would be the opinion of it, when it
comes to be related, that George Washington has received
twenty thousand dollars and five thousand pounds sterling
of the public money as an interest therein? Would not
this, in the estimation of it, (if I am entitled to any merit for
the part I have acted, and without it there is no foundation
for the act), deprive me of the principal thing which is laud-
able in my conduct?"* In a subsequent letter to Patrick

* Pickell, p. 135, or Writings of Washin^on, IX., p. 84. Wash-
ington's private opinion as to the effect the Potomac enterprise
would have in raising the value of his western lands, may be gath-
ered from a comparison of his ^yritings, IX., pp. 31, 99.

Potomac Company. 91

Henry, Harrison's successor as governor of Virginia, Wash-
ington speaks of his original determination to accept no pay
whatever for his public services: "When I was first called
to the station with which I was honored during the late con-
flict for our liberties, to the diffidence which I had so many
reasons to feel in accepting it, I thought it my duty to join
a firm resolution to shut my hand against every pecuniary
recompense. To this resolution I have invariably adhered,
and from it, if I had the inclination, I do not feel at liberty
now to depart."* But, in view of the earnest wishes of Pat-
rick Henry and the legislature of Virginia, that Washing-
ton's name might be identified with this great scheme for
public improvements, Washington finally consented to ap-
propriate the shares, not to his own emolument, but for
objects of a public nature.

* PickeU, p. 143.

' ■ '■'■**]A ** "

WASHINGTON'S PLAN

FOB A

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

The shares that Washington received from the Potomac
Company seem to have constituted the material basis of his
famous plan for a National University. An examination of
his correspondence with Edmund Randolph and Thomas
Jefferson, reveals the fact that Washington's original pur-
pose was to appropriate the Potomac and James river stock
for the establishment of two charity schools, one on each of
the above rivers for the education and support of the chil-
dren of those men who had fallen in the defense of American
liberty/ Afterward, however, believing the stock likely to
prove extremely valuable, Washington determined to em-
ploy the fifty shares, which he held in the Potomac Com-
pany, 'for the endowment of a National University, in the
District of Columbia, "under the auspices of the general
government" The one hundred shares which he held in
the James River Company were given to Liberty Hall
Academy, in Virginia, now the Washington and Lee Uni-
versity. Although Washington declared his conviction
that it would be far better to concentrate all the shares upon
the establishment of a National University,* yet, from a de-
sire to reconcile his gratitude to Virginia with a great pub-
lic good, he concluded to divide the bequest as above de-

* Writings of Washington, IX., pp. 116, 134.
' Writings of Washington, XI., p. 24.

94 Washington's Flan far a

scribed. ** I am disposed to believe,'' he writes to the gov-
ernor and legislature of Virginia, ** that a seminary of learn-
ing upon an enlarged plan, but yet not coming up to the full
idea of a university, is an institution to be preferred for the
position which is to be chosen. The students, who wish to
pursue the whole range of science, may pass with advantage
from the seminary to the University, and the former, by a
due relation, may be rendered cooperative with the latter."^

The project of a National University was a favorite
scheme of Washington's old age. It was more than an
"enlarged plan"; it was a "full idea." In these days of
striving for a broader knowledge of economic laws, for a
better civil service, and for a thorough understanding of the
principles of legislation, is it not well to consider for a
moment Washington's plan for "the education of our
youth in the science of government?" Since it is purely a
matter of fact that the most trusty and efficient servants, of
whom this country can boast, are trained at a government
institution, which was suggested by George Washington in
a speech to Congress, as second only to a National Uni-
versity, it is not unlikely that there may be some essence of
political wisdom even in the larger project. Washington
said " the art of war is at once comprehensive and compli-
cated; it demands much previous study." The American
people found out, some years ago, that Washington was
right on that point, and they are now beginning to suspect
that even the art of government requires some previous
study, and that, possibly, " a flourishing state of the arts and
sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation."'

Washington's letters, after 1794, are full of allusions to
his new scheme, and he never tires of expatiating upon the
advantages which would arise from a school of politics

* Writings of Washington, XI., p. 24.

* Speech of Washington to Congress, December 7, 1796. Writ-
ings of Washington, Xn., p. 71.

National University. ' 95

where the future guardians of liberty might receive their
training. But there is a passage in Washington's last will
and testament, which sums up his views upon this import-
ant matter: "It has always been a source of serious regret
with me," he says, " to see the youth of these United States
sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education, often
before their minds were formed, or they had imbibed any
adequate ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting,
too frequently, not only habits of dissipation and extrava-
gance, but principles unfriendly to republican government,
. . . which thereafter are rarely overcome; for these
reasons it has been my ardent wish to see a plan devised, on
a liberal scale, which would have a tendency to spread sys-
tematic ideas through all parts of this rising empire, thereby
to do away with local attachments and State prejudices, as
far as the nature of things would, or indeed ought to admit,
from our national councils. Looking anxiously forward to
the accomplishment of so desirable an object as this is, (in
my estimation), my mind has not been able to contemplate
any plan more likely to effect the measure, than the estab-
lishment of a university in the central part of the United
States, to which the youths of fortune and talents from all
parts thereof may be sent for the completion of their edu-
cation in all branches of polite literature, in the arts and
sciences, in acquiring knowledge in the principles of politics
and good government."^ ...

It was reserved for later times to see firmly established,
not far from the borders of the Potomac, midway between
North and South, and under the very shadow of one of
Washington's monuments, an institution, which, if not
national in name, is national, nay cosmopolitan, in spirit,
and is striving to realize " the full idea of a university."

^ Writings of Washington, I., p. '571. See also XI., p. 3.

OF THE

BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD.

It now remains for us to point out the connecting links
between the Past and Present, between the pioneer schemes
of George Washington, for opening communication with
the Great West, and the railroad enterprise of to-day, which
also is the outgrowth of public spirit, and not without its
influence upon the development of this country or the per-
manent welfare of a republic of letters. The work of clear-
ing the Potomac river from obstructions was never fully
carried out, and only one dividend was ever paid upon the
stock invested/ But the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Com-
pany resumed the enterprise and have achieved success.
There is now perfect communication from tide-water to
Cumberland, along the line of the Potomac, and Washing-
ton's scheme is thus far realized. According to a report
made by the president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
Company, in 185 1, this work is considered "as merely carry-
ing out in a more perfect form the design of General Wash-

* Report of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 1851, p. 20. Wash-
ington had such confidence in the Potomac Company that he re-
commended his legatees to take each a share of the Potomac stock
in his estate rather than the equivalent in money. He thought the
income from tolls would be very large when navigation was once
opened. The James River stock became productive in the course
of a few years after Washington's death. Writings of Washing-
ton. Note by Sparks, XI., p. 4.

98 Origin of the

ington, and as naturally resulting from the views and meas-
ures originally suggested and advocated by him."'

But the true historic outcome of Washington's pioneer
scheme must be sought for, not simply in the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal^ which, starting at Cumberland, brings
down coal from the mountains to the sea, but in that " en-
larged plan" which regards Cumberland, as Washington
surely did, merely as a stepping-stone to intercourse with the
Ohio Valley, the Great Lakes, and the Far West It is in-
teresting to note, that, when the hope of ever constructing
a canal over the Alleghany mountains was given up, in 1826,
in consequence of the report of the French engineers, who
had been employed to survey the proposed routes, the Bal-
timore and Ohio Railroad enterprise was undertaken, at the
suggestion of Philip E. Thomas, who resigned his office as
commissioner for Maryland in the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal Company, and devoted himself henceforth to the task
of winning back for Baltimore the line of western trade,
which had been diverted from the Cumberland road by the
Erie Canal, a work completed in 1825. In a report on this
subject to the enterprising spirits of Baltimore, by Mr.
Thomas, on the nineteenth of February, 1827, may be seen,
not only the beginning of the first railroad enterprise in this
country,* but also the revival of Washington's pioneer sug-
gestions concerning the best route from the seaboard to the
West. The following extract from this report has an historic
significance, which has never been duly emphasized, or even

* Report on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 1851, p. 20.

* Three miles of tramway, constructed in 1827, from the granite
quarries to the wharves at Quincy, Massachusetts, can hardly be
called a railroad enterprise, any more than can the quarry tram-
ways of England, which existed long before the opening of the first
railroad in the world, from Manchester to Liverpool, in 1830, the
same year as the opening of the Baltimore and Ohio, from this
city to Ellicott*s MUls, distant fourteen miles. A locomotive en-
gine was, however, first used on the Quincy road, in 1829. The
same was imported from England, where engines were just com-
ing into use upon quarry-tramways.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 99

placed in its proper connections: "Baltimore lies two hun-
dred miles nearer to the navigable waters of the West than
New York, and about one hundred miles nearer to them
than Philadelphia: to which may be added the important fact,
that the easiest, and by far the most practicable route through
the ridge of mountains, which divides the Atlantic from the
Western waters, is along the depression formed by the Poto-
mac in its passage through them.''^ Philip E. Thomas, a
worthy successor of that enterprising spirit, Governor John-
son, of Maryland, who succeeded Washington as president
of the Potomac Company, became the first president of the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad. The legislature of Maryland
voted the sum of $500,000, in 1828, for the encouragement
of the work. This was the first legislative aid ever given in
this country to railroad enterprise. An appropriation of
$1,000,0000 was afterwards recommended for it by com-
mittees in both houses of Congress, but the bill failed to
pass, owing to the opposition of General Mercer,' president
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and chairman
of the committee on roads and canals. But our Govern-
ment detailed West Point graduates to aid in engineering
this work, which has proved of truly national importance and
a worthy outcome of the National Road. As this country
IS indebted to George Washington for the suggestion both
of this work and of a military academy, where engineers are
trained for the public service, it would seem as though, in
one way cr another, all lines of our public policy lead back
to Washington, as all roads lead to Rome.

The connection of the Baltimore and Ohio with Washing-
ton's scheme for opening the West to trade and commerce,
cannot be disputed upon the ground that the application of
steam revolutionized locomotion and the routes of travel.
Steam had nothing whatever to do with the inception of the

* History and Description of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
By a Citizen of Balliinore. 1853, p. 12.

* History and Description of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
p. 22.

iOO Origin of the

Baltimore and Ohio, for the first locomotive power employed
on this road, the first division of which was opened in 1830,
was horse-power. The Liverpool and Manchester road was
opened the same year, and locomotive engines soon came into
general use, but, on the Baltimore and Ohio, cars were first
drawn, like canal boats, by horses and mules. The trans-
itional character of this Baltimore enterprise is still further
illustrated by the fact, that Evan Thomas rigged a railway-
car with sails, which was called the " JEolns," and was pro-
nounced a great success — on windy days. Baron Krudener,
a Russian envoy to this country, about the time the experi-
ment was made, was so delighted with the invention, that he
said he should like to send over all his staff from Washington
" to enjoy sailing on the railroad." The subsequent intro-
duction of railways into Russia and the official patronage ex-
tended to Ross Winans, of Baltimore, for his mechanical in-
ventions, are largely due to the glowing accounts of Ameri-
can enterprise given by Baron Krudener, after his return to
St. Petersburg. But Ross Winans' invention of powerful lo-
comotives and friction-wheels did not originate the Balti-
more and Ohio. Tliey were the result of premiums offered
to the inventive genius of America by Philip E. Thomas and
his colleagues. The opening of a railroad, or of some better
means of communication with the West than portage over
the Cumberland road, became a living necessity for the mer-
chants of Baltimore after the Erie Canal had turned the cur-
rent of western trade. It was positively a struggle for com-
mercial existence. The construction of tramways, the use of
horse-power and of sails, and the final application of steam,
and Ross Winans' inventions, were but a process of natural
selection, and only the fittest has survived. But the historic
germ of this wondefrul evolution is Washington's pioneer
scheme for opening a channel of trade to the West by way of
the Potomac. Of course external influence was necessary.
The channels of enterprise must always be kept open, like
the Suez Canal, by the constant effort of men.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 101

The original idea of Washington, concerning the Potomac
route, has become an "enlarged plan/' A road to the western
waters is the leading idea, from first to last, in the Reports of
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. This was the thought of
Philip E. Thomas, and it is the thought to-day, for there are
still western waters. The completion of " the great national
route" to the Mississippi, was announced in 1857, and, in
that year, occurred one of the greatest railway celebrations ^
this country has ever witnessed, for three grand routes, the
Baltimore and Ohio to Parkersburg, the Marietta and Cin-
cinnati from Parkersburg, and the Ohio and Mississippi
from Cincinnati to St. Louis, were simultaneously ended and
formed into " a chain which can never be broken," as Wash-
ington once said of commercial enterprise between the East

* Book of Great Railway Celebrations in 1857. By William Pres-
cott Smith. On pages 215-16 there is an interesting speech, de-
livered by Mr. George Bancroft, at the celebration in Cincinnati.
His glowing tribute to Baltimore must not be forgotten: "This
great work is emphatically the work of the City of Baltimore, and
it may almost be said, of Baltimore alone, for it was carried on
without much favor from its own State, and sometimes in conflict
with the rivalry of its neighbors. Nor is this all the marvel. The
work in its completeness has cost more than $31,000,000, and was
entered upon with a brave heart and at a time when the real and
personal property of Baltimore was less than $27,000,000. But
Baltimore was always brave. In the gloomiest hour of the Ameri-
can Revolution, her voice of patriotism was loud and clear— her
conduct an example to sister cities; and when has she been want-
ing to the cause of civil or religious freedom? . . . She is called
the Monumental City. Her column rises as a memorial of the
Father of his country; but this is her own monument. It spans
the Alleghanies; it reaches from the waters of the Atlantic to the

bosom of the Ohio We celebrate the opening of the direct

communication between Baltimore, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The
occasion is one of great national interest. The system of roads

binds indissolubly together the Bast and the West How

would Washington have exulted, could he but have seen his great
and cherished idea of an international highway carried out with a
perfection and convenience which surpassed the power of his cen-
tury to imagine! "

102 Origin of the Baltimx)re and Ohio Railroad.

and West The route which he suggested is now indeed
" becoming the channel of the extensive and valuable trade
of a rising empire."

By the waters of the Potomac, near our Nation's Capital,
there stands to-day a monument to George Washington,
completed at last after a lapse of more than a century from
the close of the American Revolution, which event it was
Washington's idea to commemorate upon that very spot by
a stately column visible from Mt. Vernon. But no monu-
ment, conspicuous from afar, can adequately symbolize the
glory of the Revolutionary achievement, or measure the
greatness of its greatest hero. The historic influence of
Washington's deeds and grand ideas will flow on like the
Potomac into a widening, boundless sea. And even that
poor river of trade which Washington first sought to open
from the West, has now become a mighty current of commer-
cial enterprise, seeking a quick way seaward past another
Monumental City, which, in art and science and the "en-
larged ideas " of Washington, is as truly grateful to his mem-
ory as the city which bears his name and contains his latest
monument.

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